By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
CRANBOURNE firefighters say the ongoing dispute is risking their mental health when all they want to do is get on with their jobs.
And they say the ongoing wrangling over the proposed enterprise bargaining agreement won’t affect their working relationship with CFA firefighters.
The three-year dispute between the Victorian Government, the CFA and the United Firefighters Union (UFU) reached tipping point last week when the CFA board refused to sign the agreement.
Cranbourne career firefighter and UFU delegate Geoff Barker said the mental health of firefighters is at risk if the dispute continues.
“I have been inundated with messages from career firefighters about their mental health and their colleagues’ mental health,” he said.
“The vilification of career firefighters in the media causes a great deal of grief and despair to the mental health of our firefighters.
“We are currently the subject of a Liberal Party campaign and are being kicked from pillar to post.”
On Friday 10 June then Minister for Emergency Services Jane Garrett stood down from cabinet rather than force the board to sign the agreement.
Deputy Premier James Merlino quickly took over the portfolio and dismissed the CFA board after members continued to refuse to sign the agreement.
The CFA put forward 14 objections to the proposed agreement that it argued disenfranchised and disempowered CFA volunteers and would cause a major disruption to firefighting operations.
Mr Barker said members feel let down.
“We require leadership from CFA to defend the professionalism and integrity of its workforce,” he said.
“At the moment there is a deathly silence from headquarters who are more interested in EBA negotiations than the mental health of the workforce.
“While they defend the EBA position they are allowing disgraceful attacks on career firefighters.”
CFA District Eight operations manager Mark Kennedy said the dispute is having wide-reaching negative effects on CFA members.
“There is a huge impact on people and all of our volunteers and staff are being impacted adversely by this dispute,” he said.
“We have strong volunteers and career staff in District Eight and at the moment all they want to do is get on with the community and continue delivering quality service.
“They don’t like being dragged into this and the politicisation is having negative effect on people.”
Mr Barker said that despite the negative attention, the proposed EBA will have no effect on the way paid and volunteer firefighters interact at Cranbourne CFA station.
“Nothing will change and nothing will affect volunteers,” he said.
“What we are doing today is what we will be doing when the EBA is signed off on and many of the conditions in the EBA are things we already do in the stations.”
Mr Barker said the volunteers and paid staff at Cranbourne CFA will continue to work together once the EBA dispute has been settled.
“Career firefighters will continue to respect and value the work of volunteers and we have a great relationship with volunteers in our district,” he said.
“Nothing will prevent us delivering a service that meets the expectation of the community.”
