Firefighters begin industrial action

Alan Blacker, I take it your comments were intentionally inflamatory (full pun intended) to provoke some political debate? If you bothered to read the piece above it's not the tories who have introduced the proposal but the London Fire Commissioner, Ron Dobson. Not very friendly to me it seems, you should change your tag.!

Alan Cox - apologies, my last entry was not directed at your entry but at Alan Blacker, who has subsequently responded, in a manner I suspect to encourage further debate

I am not open to all points of view, and never suggested same. Your friendly lawyer.

Hi John,
I try not to be biased and to give people the benefit of my experience - obviously it can be quite difficult sometimes because people only give very limited information and this can sometimes make it very difficult to give an accurate response. For this reason I try to give an explanation that will hopefully give an overview that most people can easily understand and to present both sides of the argument where this is possible.
Thanks for your comments - I appreciate them.

Regards Alan

Nice to see your open to all points of view Alan and not biased in any way, I would suggest the: 'Your friendly lawer' label has become some what tarnished!

What do you expect when you let the tories in? Strikes, cuts and fights. Tory is an old Irish word for Thief! Your friendly lawyer.

Obviously, increasing the length of time a person is at work may increase the risk but providing suitable rest periods are included I don't think that it should unduly increase the risk. When I started in the fire service we worked a 56 hour week with 15 hour nights and 9 hour days but prior to this they worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off.

Many fireman had secondary employment which they still have and the shift pattern didn't appear to affect their ability to do this - in fact there was always the argument that their secondary employent had more of an effect on their job as a firefighter .

I think you also have to consider what type of station the person is at because some stations are very busy and this tends to suit the younger person looking for action whilst the less busy stations tend to suit the person looking for a less active role. I have certainly known stations where individuals attend fires very infrequently - perhaps only 1 or 2 a month and I think this is one of the problems the authorities are trying to get to grips with and balancing this with providing a cost effective service.

I know you may be able to say this for other services, but surely increasing the number of hours in the day shift could present higher risks.

I know a few firefighters and on their nightshifts when it's quiet they get their heads down. Even if they wanted to, with all the community work that isn't possible during the day. I know it sounds like 'sleeping on the job' but it's a long shift and when they are called out, physically demanding and potentially life threatening.

If the day shift is made longer and they are given even more community tasks to carry out, will they be up for 'rescue missions' towards the end of the shift? I hate to think that they'd be exhausted and therefore unable to give their all.

Alan,
I respect any one prepared to run into a burning building to save a life.

I have several friends who were firefighters and I often worked alongside them.

I can't see why a change to 4 on 4 off 12hr shifts would be such an issue, I dont necessarily agree with the reasoning given for the change but I've no doubt they will be able to come up with some way of proving it will give a better service.

If it can be shown an enhanced service would be provided and its not increasing the hours, requiring them to work more days than they do at present or affecting their primary employment income then I cant see why they should not agree to the change.

We're all having to go through changes, some far harder than changing the hours of a shift from 15/9hrs to 2 X 12 hour shifts on a day you are working anyway IF it improves the service

The brigade have always been resistant to any change, sometimes wrongly in my opinion,but we are all having to make changes to improve efficiency.

When I was in fire service we used to work a 15 hour night shift that began at 18.00 and finished at 09.00 the following day and the day shift did 09.00 to 18.00. I didn't find this a great problem and in those days we worked a 56 hour week based on this system - obviously the way the rota worked some weeks were good and some not so good but you always knew where you stood for months in advance so you booked your holidays and social functions accordingly.

During the night shift we did various duties including drills, maintaining equipment, cleaning appliances, kit and stations, self/group study and there was also a period of rest.

One of the other things that we did even in the early 70s was to make house to house inspections and this was done following the delivery of a letter which explained why were carrying out the inspection and what we were trying to achieve. This was done with all of the crew and the appliance so that if we received a call we were instantly available.

We were also available to go out and give lectures and to take groups around the station together with carrying out statutory inspections so I think that you can see that even 40 years ago we tried to provide a good service. I think that the reason to provide more time for community work is a little bit of a red herring as we were able to do this quite well on a 15 hour shift. The other advantage to the individual was that over a period of time it reduced the number of times that you had to travel to work.

Hope this helps.

Regards Alan

Personally I thinkg the 12 hour system is making best use of time and money and ensures training and community work is covered. Can anyone give me a good reason for having 15 hour nightshifts and tell me what exactly is done during this time?