End in sight for Whanganui professional firefighters as union and Fire & Emergency New Zealand close to agreement

A potential settlement to worker disputes will be voted on by Whanganui professional firefighters on Sunday, December 11. Photo / Bevan Conley

The end is in sight for Whanganui’s professional firefighters as terms of settlement for a collective agreement were signed after a year-long dispute.

The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) and Fire & Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) have been in a dispute over the pay and health of professional firefighters for more than a year, with union members holding a series of strikes in August.

A settlement for a new collective agreement between the parties has been signed and will be presented to union members for ratification over the next week.

Whanganui NZPFU secretary Geoff Moore said local members were glad the end was in sight.

“We’re only here because of the unity of all of the members nationwide and the support from the public and the Government,” Moore said.

The terms of the settlement included a wage increase of 24 per cent and an allowance increase of 22 per cent.

Those would be backdated to 2021, and a $1500 sign-on bonus will be paid on the week of Christmas.

On top of pay increases, firefighters will also have access to blood screenings for the early detection of cancer and other illnesses.

There’ll also be more psychological support and supervision for firefighters and dispatchers attending medical emergencies, and financial assistance for members to access income protection and life insurance.

Moore said there was still work to be done in terms of staffing and addressing the age and condition of the national fleet of appliances.

But he said there were agreements between the union and FENZ to work together on addressing those issues in the future.

Moore said the Government getting involved with the negotiations and the release of the Graham Colgan report were the turning points in reaching these agreements.

“We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without it,” he said.

An NZPFU spokesperson said that report found firefighters were underpaid, undervalued, and disrespected.

It found staffing and appliance systems needed to be addressed and the mental and physical health issues of firefighters needed recognition.

The proposed settlement goes further than the Colgan report in terms of conditions and costings, with the expected cost of the offer around $145 million, which NZPFU said is $100 million more than an offer presented by FENZ in July.

The Government contributed $75.4 million in repayable funding to the offer.

FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory said they were pleased to present the revised offer to union members with government assistance as their previously presented offer was as much as they could afford.

“This has been a challenging period for all our people and I am optimistic we can now move past this so our career firefighters can focus on what they love to do, which is serving the communities of Aotearoa,” he said.

A draft collective agreement will now be presented to NZPFU members in ratification meetings across the country starting from Thursday, with the Whanganui meeting taking place on Sunday, December 11.

Moore expected Whanganui union members to agree to the settlement.

“Our national committee recommend it... it’s as good as we’re gonna get so [yes], our union members are pretty happy we finally got somewhere.”

The votes on whether to agree to the settlement will be counted on December 18.

Moore said if the settlement was agreed to it’d be back to business as usual for Whanganui professional firefighters.

He thanked the public for their ongoing support during the negotiations.