Demands of British Columbia Wildland Firefighters
The British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU) is making concerted efforts to improve the working conditions of wildland firefighters and support their ongoing campaign to deal with the acute problems of retention. In an interview with TML, a spokesperson for the BCGEU explained that BC Wildfire Service is losing people who have worked as wildland firefighters for as long as 20 years. The service lost a lot of people last year, she said. The problem is evident in the fact that last summer, of the 261 crew leaders, 152 had one year of experience, 47 had two years of experience and only seven had four or more years of experience. When you lose experienced firefighters like that, it affects the entire firefighting team.
TML clearly saw how the problem of the anti-social offensive gives rise to such a critical retention problem. Governments consider that workers are disposable. They pass laws which pay the rich and refuse to take responsibility for the fact that their pay-the-rich programs go hand in hand with the deterioration of wages and working conditions of all public sector workers. This is very dangerous when it concerns frontline workers whose lives are in jeopardy every day, as in the case of the wildland firefighters.
Another problem for the wildland firefighters is that instead of expanding the number of workers represented by BCGEU, the government is expanding the number of contract workers. These workers are hired according to need as the season progresses. This creates a lot of difficulties when the contract workers are brought in during the season instead of having time to learn to operate as part of a team, with everyone knowing their responsibilities. Many experts, as well as the firefighters themselves and their organizations, are calling for a permanent, year-round workforce to deal with the new conditions of forest fires.
BCGEU launched a petition in the form of an open letter directed to the BC Minister of Forestry in August 2023 urging the province to improve the working conditions of wildland firefighters in the face of the retention crisis. The petition is ongoing. As well, in November 2023, the union brought a group of wildland firefighters to the BC legislature where they spoke with the premier, cabinet ministers and MLAs. The workers spoke about their experience and the necessity for the government to take the necessary measures to address the tremendous difficulties they face.
The petition says,
"The 2023 wildfire season was BC's most destructive on record. A total of 2,217 fires burned almost 25,000 square kilometres of trees, bush and grassland. This made it an extremely dangerous time for our brave firefighters -- who our communities relied on heavily to protect the province.
"We need to do more to support firefighters -- they are putting their lives on the line to protect our communities from devastating fires, but they are doing it for the starting low wage of $26.68/hr. As a result, a lot of firefighters must work unsustainable hours of overtime and sometimes leave to work in the private sector.
"There is a massive recruitment and retention crisis among firefighters due to low wages, low pensions and no hazard pay. This means it's getting harder and harder to train and retain the most skilled firefighters in the province. The people who are protecting our province from fires deserve better!
"Firefighters are doing everything they can to protect us and our communities, so we need to show our support for them now. We are calling on the Minister of Forests, Bruce Ralston to support BC's firefighters."
BCGEU is calling for an overhaul of the compensation system so firefighters are paid fair wages and pensions equivalent to those of other public safety first responders.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 3 - April 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540034.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca