Hot under collar over broken fire engine
STRIKING Invercargill firefighters say they are ‘‘not overly pleased’’ they are due to receive an appliance that broke down last week fighting an inferno in Christchurch.
Equipment failures are a key grievance of career firefighters presently engaged in industrial action, after 14 months of collective bargaining with Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz).
An hourlong strike on Friday highlighted grievances around about carcinogens, consultation, staffing levels, recruitment, medical insurance and workloads.
Now, an Official Information Act response from Fenz has revealed 16 of 195 appliances deployed in Otago and Southland were manufactured before 1990.
The oldest listed are a pair of 38yearold Iveco Eurocargos, stationed at Dunedin’s Waitati and Southland’s Nightcaps volunteer fire stations.
However, New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union Invercargill local secretary Station Officer
Aaron Ramsey said the age of the fleet was not the most important consideration.
Some older vehicles were of a higher quality than recent acquisitions.
In particular, the MAN appliances, introduced in
2015, had a lot of faults and were poorly built, SO Ramsey said.
This had thrown a spanner in Fenz’s replacement schedule as appliances were meant to be replaced based on the amount of use they received, he said.
Invercargill’s 17m ladder truck, from 2010, would soon be swapped with a lesserused 2005 truck from Christchurch, which broke down while firefighters battled a scrapyard blaze last Wednesday.
Invercargill firefighters were ‘‘not overly pleased’’ about getting a truck with known faults, SO Ramsey said.
It was normal for Southern stations to get secondhand trucks, but now replacements were likely four years behind schedule because of the ‘‘debacle’’ with the MAN trucks, SO Ramsey said.
NZPFU Northern branch secretary Martin Campbell, of Auckland, said the replacement plan had been hamstrung by a lack of new fire trucks coming into service and the fleet becoming progressively more worn.
Fenz had not done enough longterm planning and it could be two years before significant numbers of new trucks were in play, Mr Campbell said.
In response, Fenz national fleet manager Mike Moran said the organisation had 62 appliances ordered, in addition to those already scheduled for replacement.
Procurement projects were also under way to replace four ladder trucks and to find a new supplier for the basic appliances used by most career firefighters.
Six trial appliances were due to be delivered within six months for operational trials, Mr Moran said.
Career firefighters are set to go ahead with a second onehour work stoppage, from 11am tomorrow.
The strike action will be repeated on September 2 and 9 if no resolution is found, a strike notice says.