MEDIA STATEMENT BY MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY, ALDERMAN JP SMITH

The City’s Fire and Rescue Service has concluded a new collective agreement with unions, which is binding until the end of June 2030.

The agreement regulates ordinary working hours, standby time, weekends and public holidays, as well as night work for Fire Services officers, firefighters and control room staff.

In recent years, we have experienced ad hoc disruptions to services, amid ongoing disagreement over the terms of the last collective agreement that was concluded in 2007. Efforts to conclude an updated agreement too were affected.

In 2020, the Labour Court ruled that the previous 24-hour shift agreement and standby allowance afforded to firefighters was valid and binding until such time as a new collected agreement had been concluded.

We are very happy to announce that this has now happened, and this morning, all signatories to the agreement put pen to paper.

The standby allowance has been a contentious issue for the past 15 years and I have personally been very keen to see this matter resolved as it was today, with the adoption of the new collective agreement for the Fire and Rescue Service, as the working conditions and happiness of our firefighters and all other Safety and Security staff matter a great deal to me.

Under the new collective agreement, firefighters will now receive a standby allowance of 37% of their monthly salary, compared to the previous 22,8%.

However, deductions will be made in the event that a staff member is not available for standby duties.

This agreement has been a long time coming, and while we are relieved that it has been concluded, we do hope that future negotiations will be far less cumbersome.

Residents rely on our essential services, and we cannot allow our city to be left vulnerable when lives and property are at stake.

Source: City of Cape Town