strike

[cncfabs]

All are armed forces are unnessary we have nuclear weapons no one is going to invade us they are just used to fight foreign wars.ony problem is when we lay them off we will still have to pay them benefits.I just looked at pay for fire fighters and ive got to say i wouldnt want to do thay job for £13 per hour

[macabethiel]

Aside from out Troops in war zones Firefighters have one of the worst death rates in any occupation.

More Firefighter die on average each year than Police Officers in the line of duty.

Not checked statistics recently but top work place fatalities used to be Construction Workers & Farmers

[firebobby]

I'm a Retained Fire Fighter, have been for 24 years, I'm in the pension scheme now, but we were not allowed in until after the last strike., now recognised as part time workers. Just wish it could be back dated to my start date.

We go out on strike, but will still always turn out for life risk jobs...fires or RTC's, so would never stand and watch people burn FFS

I'm 50 now and I find it harder to do things now, that I found a piece of piss to do 20 years ago, there's no way I would want to be doing this job at 60 and I don't think the public would want 60 year olds doing it either.

[macabethiel]

I agree in my last couple of years in the Police Service working 12 hours shifts days and nights
took its toll on me never mind scraping with drunks etc.

I retired at 55 the then age limit - I was offered a 1 year contract to stay on but decided I prefered to be in my bed at night time!

In the old days there were inside jobs for staff when you were older and approaching retirement. The policy of civilianisation took most of the inside jobs so many officers took the medical retirement if they could.
Indeed the Home Office funded all medical retirement for over a decade until someone noticed more officers were retiring on medicals than on age limit.

[Terranoman]

The goverment commissioned a report (williams) which states 2/3 of current serving firefighters will not be able to reach 60 years old. What they are aiming for is you maintain a VO2 of 42.

Inorder to reach this at 60 years old you must be employed at age 20 with a VO2 of 52+. A international rugby player is 47!

The FBU has had it established in court that you can not set a VO2 level for a recruit based on pension requirement. It must be job based.

Now we do have a situation where since 2006 we have had a new pension scheme in place and face another now. By 2015 i will of had 4 pension schemes with the same employer! Any way back to the 2006 scheme this has a pension age of 60 but written into it was a clause which says if you cannot stay operational you will be redeployed within the service in a non operational post to see out your days. Due to the current state of councils there are 16 redeployment positions in England! Now 2/3rds trying to fill 16 posts aint going to work. So what the goverment have said is if there is no place for you, you will be sacked due to capability.

I have already reprosented a member who hurt his back carrying out his job at an incident. He is now in the process of being sacked as the injury will never heal. This is how his employers and the public he serves thank him!

We have no issue taking risk to save savable life but what we will need to start doing is thinking of the risk to ourselves more. At the end of the day everyone works to provide for their families.

I was reading the other day how the top level business bods decided in 2009 that they were going to use the credit crunch to screw over workers driving down wages and working rights. I feel like doctor who going back to the victorian times.

I was also told that MP's want to get their own back over the expeses issue.

Bitter twisted people with power.

[Terranoman]

6 years tonight to the 4 who died in Warwickshire.