Save West Dorset’s firefighters!
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Cllr Richard Biggs, Cllr Tim Harries, Cllr Trevor Jones, Graham Watson MEP and Sue Farrant at the Dorset Fire & Rescue Service HQ
Retained firefighters under threat
Fire stations in West Dorset are staffed entirely by retained firefighters. These dedicated people usually have jobs outside the fire service but spend well over 100 hours per week “on call” either in their own homes or at work. If there is a fire or accident emergency, they drop everything to respond.
The system works. Our highly trained retained firefighters do a fantastic job.
But it only works because the UK has kept the right for some workers to choose to opt out of the EU Working Time Directive. That limits working hours to 48 hours per week.
Now we fear that the government is about to give up the UK’s right to opt out. That would be a disaster for our retained firefighters because their total working hours including the time they spend on call could be well over the 48 hour limit. As a result many of of these dedicated men and women could be forced to give up their work with the fire service.
The consequences would be catastrophic to our fire service, including all seven West Dorset fire stations (Sherborne, Maiden Newton, Dorchester, Bridport, Charmouth, Lyme Regis and Beaminster).
Our campaign
Your local Liberal Democrats, led by parliamentary candidate Sue Farrant, are pressing the government to keep the UK’s voluntary opt-out so that our retained firefighters can continue their essential work.
We must make the government realise how important this is.
We need your help!
Please sign our petition at savedorsetfirefighters.org.uk to show the government how strongly we feel about this. They must keep the voluntary opt out from the working time directive so we can keep our firefighters!
Firefighters save lives. Help us save our firefighters!
