In this edition - As you will recall, QFES recently conducted a flawed recruitment and selection process that completely disregarded the vital requirement for regional Assistant Commissioners to have professional firefighting qualifications and experience, and the UFUQ lodged a dispute at the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) regarding this matter.

In this edition - For over a decade, the UFUQ had been pushing for a reverse of the ‘onus of proof’ for firefighters claiming workers’ compensation when they are diagnosed with specific types of cancers. In December 2013, the then state government opposition leader (now Queensland Premier Palaszczuk) in an agreement with the UFUQ wrote to us confirming that upon return to government (which occurred in January 2015) she would ensure presumptive legislation was introduced into the Queensland workers’ compensation system. That agreement with your state union happened as promised.

In this edition - In CA22 Update 1 (emailed to members on 31 May 2022), I reported to you that commencement of your new certified agreement is waiting on a formal wage offer from the state government and then the authority from the state government to QFES to provide your union with a notification of an intention to bargain.

In this edition - For some time, Station officers and Roster Officers in all regions have been reporting their concerns with the way the business is managing day work roles (too many day work roles, poorly managed rotation processes and cherry picking has a significant effect on availability of operational SO’s to crew appliances). These reports suggest the number of day work roles is excessive and this is having a detrimental effect on safe and full crewing in all regions.

In this edition - As reported in Code 2’s v36#7 and v36#9, QFES senior executives (mostly acting up in their roles at the time) failed to appropriately apply the merit principle in deciding to appoint a public servant as a regional Assistant Commissioner and then attempted to tell your union we couldn’t dispute their mistake.