Press Releases
No threat to retained fire crews
Stephen Hughes, spokesman for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament on employment responded today to claims that moves he has lead to end the opt out from the working time directive would threaten the future of fire crews. Commenting from Brussels he said:-
"These claims are creating genuine concern in remote and rural areas where retained fire fighters are heavily depended upon to deliver emergency fire services. There is growing anxiety in Local Government over the cost implications which they would have to carry if no longer allowed to use retained fire fighters.
"This anxiety is groundless.
"TUC figures based on the Office of National Statistics Labour Force Survey found that most retained fire-fighters did not work an average 48-hour week, adding all their various jobs together.
"No fire-fighter will be prevented from doing his or her job as the regulations are waived if property, life or limbs are at risk.
"Under community law as it stands now, Directive 2003/83 allows an exception to the WTD rules for 'fire and civil protection services', which would obviously cover Britain's voluntary rescue services. This means that they can depart from the normal rules on daily rest periods, breaks, weekly rest periods, length of night work and the reference periods on the basis of which the weekly rest period and the maximum weekly working time are calculated.
"This allows the working hours of fire-fighters to be handled flexibly by local authorities. All that they are committed to providing in return is compensatory rest, or where that is impossible, to make sure that they are protected from exploitation.
"Retained fire-fighters are employed on an on-call basis and are only required to work when there is a fire or an emergency. Some people might be concerned about the impact of two judgments of the Court of Justice, SIMIP and Jaeger, but these apply only to those employees on stand-by at the place of work (a hospital, in both cases) where on-call time is counted as working time.
"Retained fire-fighters are exempt whether there is an opt-out to the Working Time Directive or not."
ENDS
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT STEPHEN HUGHES ON 07770 914526