State plan gives union fire control

FORMER MFB president Adrian Nye has warned the State Government’s fire services restructure will hand almost all “managerial control” to the United Firefighters’ Union.

Mr Nye also slammed the Government for its lack of consultation and labelled the restructure an “act of bad faith” in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the proposed laws.

“If the bill passes, the UFU will have secured a method of managerial control over a state enterprise not seen in any other Victorian public entity, nor to my knowledge in any other Australian or New Zealand public enterprise,” his submission says.

“The history of concessions made to the UFU on these complex administrative devices so as to assert significant control over a public entity cannot easily be unwound.

“Under these circumstances the public may have expected that extensive consultation and research might have been commissioned to ensure that the state is not advantaging a group of rent seekers, contrary to the public interest.”

Career firefighters have flooded the parliamentary inquiry with submissions supporting the restructure.

The union has directed all its members to take part and advocate for the restructure.

Under the restructure, the MFB would be abolished and all paid firefighters moved to a new service called Fire Rescue Victoria.

The new agency would also take over all of the CFA’s 35 integrated fire stations and all of its paid firefighters, with a new enterprise agreement to be drawn up for the FRV.

Mr Nye said previous enterprise agreements with the UFU had set up a system of union vetoes where fire services employees were effectively free from the public sector codes of conduct.