Firefighter Strike

because i'm quiote happy with my job and am not slagging off firefighters for wanting better T&C

As I said above roughly 160 house fires per day dealt with by 50 ish fire services - so 3 per service per day

Add on car accidents, car fires, grass fires, cliff rescues, chemical spills , various other such things , and that's a hell of a lot of activity per day... it doesn't leave a lot of time for sitting on their arse

Oh and I'm not going from the TV, i'm going from what ive been told by firefighters I know and personal experience of working along side them on cliff rescues and countryside fires. The last crew I met (grass fire in the hot spell in july ) were on their fourth call out that day when I spoke to them and still had several hours of shift to go.

And that's in a rural area - i'd imagine an urban crew would have even more to deal with
 
big soft moose said:
the green goddesses have got to be unfit for purpose by now (talking about the army fire engines , not Yv and co ;) ) - doesn't the army have any modern fire fighting equipment ?
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The Green Goddesses were retired a few years ago. The army doesn't need its own fire engines to cover for strikes as there are perfectly good fire engines in the fire stations.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
The Green Goddesses were retired a few years ago. The army doesn't need its own fire engines to cover for strikes as there are perfectly good fire engines in the fire stations.


Steve.
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Good point - I was more thinking what does the army do about its own fires - presumably they aren't reliant on civilian firefighters ? (honest question - I don't know)
 
big soft moose said:
Brigade stats suggest circa 59,000 house fires per year in the uK - which resolves to about 160 per day
There are about 50 fire and rescue services so that would suggest that each service deals with three per day and that's just one element of what they do (theres also industrial fires, countryside fires, car fires and all the other stuff I listed above)
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There may well be about 50 fire and rescue services, but that is fire services not fire stations, just one fire service as an example, Essex Fire service, has about 50 fire stations alone so your maths is going to be way off the mark I'm afraid.:shrug:
 
I think some people are missing the salient point that a lot of what people, who do similar type jobs, are affected by,is as much pyschological as physical.

Some people witness,deal with and pick up the pieces of some horrific incidents, that can be more disturbing than the physical side of certrain jobs.
 
(in response to nialgin) not really - check the statistics I posted above 624,000 fire related incidents , 35,000 full timers and 18,000 retained

So that's 53,000 responders, responding in an average crew of I think 8 = 6,625 crews - 94 fire related call outs per crew per year (very roughly and not counting that some fires will be multicrewed) on average one fire related call out per crew every 4 days

the other shifts being taken up with all the other stuff I mentioned , plus of course training and other such matters

Do you fancy potentially risking your life 94 times a year ? - I know I don't, and I also know that I have the utmosts respect for those that do (not to mention the as Frac points out the psychological effects of routinely attending car accidents, fires, and all the rest )
 
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Ruffy said:
You have just hit the nail on its head, at last......

This is the whole point, their is no such thing as ill health retirement really, so if you end up with arthritis, bad knee or any other kind of illness other than general Vo2 input/output then your going to be sacked, simple as that !

And a quick question for everyone, god forbid that a member of your family were to become trapped in a house fire, would you want a 60-65 year old person to come along and attempt a rescue, one where they may have to push their limits a little higher to achieve the task ? Or maybe at a complicated RTC where prolonged periods of use of extremely heavy cutting gear is required to extricate your family member ?

Think of the first 60-65 year old person that comes into your head, would you want them coming to save you or somebody else ?

Okay, I guess I should just up sticks, throw my career down the pan because someone came along and drastically wants to change something that I had originally signed up for...that was to work till I'm 55 not 65
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Hmm that's a tough one you see... because with age comes experience. Off topic a bit but my dad is 75 and considerably a lot fitter and more active than many 65 or even 55 yr olds.

I'm not saying what they are trying to do is right, but surely there should be scope for taking each and every individual on their merit.

Used to work with a young fit and healthy 30 yr old, played a lot of Sunday league football at a reasonable level. He dropped down dead with a heart attack just before his 31st birthday. To judge solely on age is wrong.

However, I maintain that strike action will not generate the support of the general public. Yes I accept the general perception of fire brigade is pool tables etc when not fighting fires... maybe London's burning has a lot to answer for, or also remember seeing 3 fire engines worth of fireman having a kick about on the park, complete with fire engines... on many an occasion.

Not having a dig and I respect what you do for a living, but tell me one thing...

The day you signed on the line to be a firefighter, you must have expected / realised quite a bit of danger compared to a desk jockey and a computer??? If so, we need to knock the "danger factor" on the head and to continue a reasoned debate, focus on the issues of 65 yr olds etc.


(y)
 
SpikeK6 said:
I think unless you are a firefighter doing the job full time NO ONE can dis what they do day in day out and how it affects their bodies.

I am the first to admit I am not fit, never have been and never will be but i have seen better people fitness wise than me suffer in the building industry. Just because one person runs umpteen miles a week and goes to the gym for hours on end and can stay fit all their lives does not mean that the person standing next to him can do the same. So by some merit a firefighter keeping fit is possible to retire and still do the job at 60 years old but I bet for every one fire fighter that is like that there will be 20-30 that cannot.

Conditions have got better, equipment has got better over the years but that does make the stress or the pressure on the body any less.
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And I still maintain they will be unfit long before they 60, if that's the case. I'm surprised they don't want their pension by 35-40 if their fitness level is that bad. I spend about 3/4hr in the gym 5 days a week to maintain my fitness level, it's not hard.
 
nilagin said:
. I spend about 3/4hr in the gym 5 days a week to maintain my fitness level, it's not hard.
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And as I said before - how many fires, car accidents and chemical spills do you attend each year ( I'm guessing none)
 
Garry Edwards said:
In fact, it's farmers who have the highest number of fatal and serious injuries per capita, and their average wage is only £12K, most have no pension at all and their working conditions must be among the worst...
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Depending on the source, you can easily find farmers (or farm labourers) - we have some horrific cases there, fishermen (that's deep sea trawling, not drowning worms!) , emergency responders (varies by country! - and would include firefighters)
 
big soft moose said:
(in response to nialgin) not really - check the statistics I posted above 624,000 fire related incidents , 35,000 full timers and 18,000 retained

So that's 53,000 responders, responding in an average crew of I think 8 = 6,625 crews - 94 fire related call outs per crew per year (very roughly and not counting that some fires will be multicrewed) on average one fire related call out per crew every 4 days

the other shifts being taken up with all the other stuff I mentioned , plus of course training and other such matters

Do you fancy potentially risking your life 94 times a year ? - I know I don't, and I also know that I have the utmosts respect for those that do (not to mention the as Frac points out the psychological effects of routinely attending car accidents, fires, and all the rest )
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Firstly you'll notice my response was to the first set of figures you came up with, not what you came up with later whilst I was replying.
Secondly I've worked in power presses for 25 yrs of my, at present, 34 year worklife, where their is a potential threat to life every working day, not through fire, but being crushed to a pulp where the remains would have to be hosed away (obviously there are safety measures taken to try to prevent this but they are not 100% foolproof, Firemen have safety measures also). It was a job I loved and would gladly have carried on doing for many more years, but sadly my employer felt they no longer required that work to be done in the UK, closed the factory and have given me something less dangerous to do instead.
 
Every job has its dangers - I use a chainsaw on a regular basis and dealing with hung up trees isn't the safest thing ever (they call them widow makers for a reason) however i'm under no illusion that my job is anywhere near as dangerous as what a firefighter does

the sailent point though is that you are saying its easy to maintain your physical fitness - and I'm saying that if you regularly go into burning buildings or indeed into the environs of other stuff that's on fire , or dealing with hazardous chemicals etc ... that's going to affect your fitness and health

and if you regularly see dead, dying or horrifically injured people, that's going to affect your psychological well being too
 
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big soft moose said:
And as I said before - how many fires, car accidents and chemical spills do you attend each year ( I'm guessing none)
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And what if I did? I'd still maintain the same workout levels and fitness. My job didn't require it but it helps, I remain active, I get no aches and pains or injuries that many others, younger than myself get from doing the same job, because they don't get any exercise or take care of themselves.
Firemen have to attain a certain fitness level to be considered for the job, part of their job is to maintain that fitness.
 
Last time I checked our local stats, there we surprisingly few fires, but a lot of crashes, but that may be m4 later etc. the was also a lot of preventative visits, perhaps there's a possible solution of having a phased solution, so the older members do more of that type of work.

Whilst I'm sympathetic, the public sector pension bill is becoming unsustainable. Most private sector people lost their final salary schemes ten years ago, it's just taken time for the publIc sector to catch up. It's not nice, but it's the way it is.

What is worrying is there's going to be an awful lot of people in 20-30 years struggling to make ends meet.
 
nilagin said:
And I still maintain they will be unfit long before they 60, if that's the case. I'm surprised they don't want their pension by 35-40 if their fitness level is that bad. I spend about 3/4hr in the gym 5 days a week to maintain my fitness level, it's not hard.
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Right, I said I was going to stay out of this thread but your constant harping on about how fit you are has dragged me back in.

Lets get something straight, we are not just talking about fitness levels in terms of just cardio, we are talking about general health and fitness, knees, back, shoulders and any other joints that become weak as you get older, it's common knowledge that as you get old, your body slows down unless of course you want to challenge that as well, the point is this and I will try and say it clear and slowly so everyone understands it.....

If we can't perform our role, which can be entering a burning building with temps reaching 800/900 and carry out a person that could weigh anything from a few kg to 110/120 kg and do it safely and with speed to increase the chance of survival for both victim or rescuer or maybe it could be at a serious RTC where you could be using extremely heavy cutting equipment for prolonged periods !!

If you can't do the above at the age of 60-65....we will sack you

Is that right ?
 
you (Nialgin) are still missing the point - don't you think that being exposed to smoke and toxins for 40 years might take something of a toll on your body (and yes I know they have breathing apparatus , but they are still exposed to smoke and crap a lot more than your average joe )

and as I said above there's also the psychological effects of what they have to see.. 40 years of that has got to take its toll too
 
The long and short of it is that unless you're a firefighter, you have bugger all idea of what's actually involved. You have second hand evidence and hearsay at best.
 
Byker28i said:
Whilst I'm sympathetic, the public sector pension bill is becoming unsustainable.
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It's unsustainable because it's essentially a Ponzi scheme. And all Ponzi schemes, by their very nature, will collapse. Given that the pension is one of the key attractions/benefits for working in the public sector, what's the point in remaining in the public sector?
 
big soft moose said:
and if you regularly see dead, dying or horrifically injured people, that's going to affect your psychological well being too
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If that is the case, they will leave the job long before they even think about their pension. I know a 59yr old retainer fireman, he has been most of his working life, as soon as he left work he'd be straight up the fire station and other than going home at night (remaining on call) he'd be there pretty much all the time and would have encountered all the above and yet he'd still turn up for work to do the same physically demanding job as me and would have carried on doing both jobs for as long as they would have let him. Sadly as our plant closed he's had to give up one of them. So now he'll be on call 24/7 at the fire station.
 
omens said:
It's unsustainable because it's essentially a Ponzi scheme. And all Ponzi schemes, by their very nature, will collapse. Given that the pension is one of the key attractions/benefits for working in the public sector, what's the point in remaining in the public sector?
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that - I used to be a PRoW officer, I moved to the third sector for better job security (The pension may be worse, but a public sector pension is no good if you don't know if you'll still be employed each financial year despite allegedly having a permanent contract)

As regards fire (and police, nurses etc) the issue is going to be in a few years what if they can't recruit - the pay isn't all that , the hours are long, the job is dangerous - the T&C and the pension used to be the main benefits - take that away, and why would anyone choose to do this work ?

and if they can't recruit effectively how are they going to maintain emergency cover ?
 
Ruffy said:
Lets get something straight, we are not just talking about fitness levels in terms of just cardio, we are talking about general health and fitness, knees, back, shoulders and any other joints that become weak as you get older, it's common knowledge that as you get old, your body slows down unless of course you want to challenge that as well, the point is this and I will try and say it clear and slowly so everyone understands it.....
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Those are the exact ailments that my workmates have that don't keep fit or take exercise. These are people in their late twenties onwards. As I said earlier I'm now 51 and have avoided these ailments.

big soft moose said:
you (Nialgin) are still missing the point - don't you think that being exposed to smoke and toxins for 40 years might take something of a toll on your body (and yes I know they have breathing apparatus , but they are still exposed to smoke and crap a lot more than your average joe )
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But as you say they wear breathing apparatus but it still wasn't every day. I worked in an environment of dust from machinery, dust from hand grinding metal with only a paper mask to try, but fail to filter the dust. If I didn't wear a mask I'd suffer regular nose bleeds, Oil vapour in the air, oils used in the metal drawing process that can cause cancer if excessively exposed to the skin. That was every working day, not possibly once or twice a week. I didn't choose my job at 16, because there might be a good pension at the end of it, I chose it because it was the company I wanted to work for, I bet anyone else who went into the fire service at a young age wasn't even interested in a pension, they just wanted to be a fireman.
 
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big soft moose said:
you (Nialgin) are still missing the point - don't you think that being exposed to smoke and toxins for 40 years might take something of a toll on your body (and yes I know they have breathing apparatus , but they are still exposed to smoke and crap a lot more than your average joe )

and as I said above there's also the psychological effects of what they have to see.. 40 years of that has got to take its toll too
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Does anyone join the fire service believing that they will never be regularly exposed to such things?
 
Garry Edwards said:
But I don't feel that their union helps, over the years they have fought every single proposed change, good or bad, and may be seen my many as reactionary and unreasonable.
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Exactly this. Not just the fire union but most unions. They fight everything and you can only cry wolf so many times.
 
viv1969 said:
Does anyone join the fire service believing that they will never be regularly exposed to such things?
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no but they join believing they'll be able to retire at 50
 
big soft moose said:
no but they join believing they'll be able to retire at 50
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B*))*$ they do, they joined because they wanted to be a fireman. Chances are they found this out later and thought the job was even more attractive.
Again, who's going to pay for it?
 
nilagin said:
B*))*$ they do, they joined because they wanted to be a fireman. Chances are they found this out later and thought the job was even more attractive. Again, who's going to pay for it?
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Well I admire you, your extremely fit, you don't get any knocks or injuries that let you perform your job so well and at 100% because someone might die if you didn't, wish I was you
 
omens said:
And one person can then be generalised to cover a population? :wacky:
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I have had several workmates over the years who have also taken steps to remain fit and have remained so, continuing with the same job up to retirement. The majority of those who haven't maintained a good level of fitness, have become physically unable to carry on with the same job by the time they are 50 and had to take on other less physically demanding roles to see out their time to retirement.
 
Yeah they wanted to be a fireman - but why did they want to be a fireman ? yes they probanbly wanted an exciting job and to do good etc, but i'm sure T&C came into it too.

Were you happy when your employer unilaterally changed your T&Cs ? I know I wasn't when they did it to me in 2010 ( I left public sector employ as a direct result)
 
nilagin said:
You have no idea of how physically demanding everyday my job was.
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No I don't - I've never been a power press operator. I have as little idea about what that involves as you have about what its like to be a fireman... but that doesn't stop you from posting post after post deriding their physical fitness

Ruffy on the other hand knows exactly what its like to be a fireman..so why not take his word for the issues involved ?
 
big soft moose said:
Yeah they wanted to be a fireman - but why did they want to be a fireman ? yes they probanbly wanted an exciting job and to do good etc, but i'm sure T&C came into it too.

Were you happy when your employer unilaterally changed your T&Cs ? I know I wasn't when they did it to me in 2010 ( I left public sector employ as a direct result)
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So when a kid gets asked by a careers officer, what job they want they are aware of the T&C, or even later when they apply for a job. No school leaver even thinks about pensions, they just want to earn a wage and the furthest they are looking forward in their life is Friday night or at the most as far as a holiday possibly next summer.
No-one is ever happy when their T&C's are changed for the worse, but we're in bad economic times, cuts and unfavourable measures have to be made otherwise we'll never come out of it.
By the way, I'm not a press operator, that is just pressing a button every few seconds, and most places are fully automated now so that rarely happens now.
 
I give up
 
big soft moose said:
No I don't - I've never been a power press operator. I have as little idea about what that involves as you have about what its like to be a fireman... but that doesn't stop you from posting post after post deriding their physical fitness

Ruffy on the other hand knows exactly what its like to be a fireman..so why not take his word for the issues involved ?
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I'm not deriding their physical fitness, I'm saying that if they are still physically fit enough at 50, there is no reason they can't maintain that level of fitness up to or past the age of 60.
 
Ruffy said:
Well I admire you, your extremely fit, you don't get any knocks or injuries that let you perform your job so well and at 100% because someone might die if you didn't, wish I was you
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I used to be in a job that someone died if I did my job right...
 
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