Volunteer Fire Dept.

[crazym29]

The volunteer fire dept. that I am on is haveing some conflict between volunteers and full time personal. Our volunteer's are expected to be on duty every third day for 12 hours and 24 on weekends an hoildays. we are also required to be at a training session every Thursday night for 3 hours. On top of this we are not aloud vacation days unless they are in concurrence with our full time jobs, we are required to have doctors excuses if we take off for being sick, and if we need to have a day off we are required to find coverage. We were woundering how your dept. worked. and if you had any suggestions that may help us.
crazym_29@yahoo.com

[Keith W. Stunek]

We are a combination department also. 8 full time and 32 volunteers. 10 years ago we were having the same problems. We are now treated the same. THis includes vacation, sick time, emergency response requirements, retirement benefit accumulation and contribution from the city for benefits. This took alot of negotiaions with the city, the volunteers and the union.

[colfireman]

It makes me wonder how your department classifies the word "VOLUNTEER". Are you totally volunteer?Or are you "Paid on Call"?The department i belong to has a minimum practise requirement of 70% attendance per year.There is NO stipulation on how many calls you Must attend,no requirement for "ON DUTY".Once you start that in our province you now must classify them as Paid personell.When "VOLUNTEERS" are away we ask them to post the away dates on the board as this gives us an indication who is remaining in the area.
F.Y.I. we do not receive money for responding to calls or practise,but we do belong to an association which receives a grant in lieu of getting paid.

[SilverCity4]

This same post is working in the Volunteer Forum. Some of the above questions are answered. Might clear up a few things.

[Keith W. Stunek]

Thank You
I have reposted with further information on the Volunteer site