FIRE SERVICE DUTIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25021, 15 September 1942, Page 6

FIRE SERVICE DUTIES

PRECEDENCE QUESTION

The question whether Emergency Fire Service duties take precedence over overtime work of an employee doing work of national importance has been answered by the Dominion Fire Controller, Mr R. Girling Butcher, in a letter to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation. The E.F.S., he stated, was a technical unit which required a considerable amount of training, and, with larger quantities of hose available, it was necessary that training should be intensified. Instructions had therefore been given that all E.F.S. members should undertake duty at 5.30 p.m. during the weeks in which they were in billets, usually one week in three or four. The only exception to the general rule was where a member was one of a team of workers whose absence would have an undue effect on production of national importance. Mr Butcher cited the arrangement made in Auckland to cover such cases, each of which was referred to the secretary of the Man-power Committee, who, after discussion with the district commander of the E.F.S. and the employer, made a decision whether exemption, general or for a period, was justified. Where possible, E.F.S. district commanders rearranged duties to meet the convenience of employers. The only alternative to the existing E.F.S. system, Mr Butcher added, was the employment of full-time personnel, which would remove the men from trade and industry altogether.