She said union threats to escalate to twice-weekly strikes was not bargaining in good faith.
Fire and Emergency expressed similar concern after a fire destroyed a Pakūranga business on January 9 when firefighters a few minutes away were on a notified stopwork for an hour.
Professional Firefighters’ Union national secretary Wattie Watson rejected that criticism at the time, saying Fire and Emergency had presented them with a “long list” of types of incidents the union might call off the strikes for, though the action had strict legal parameters around it, including advance notice.
“Fire and Emergency is attempting to go behind that notice, and any change that we give them would give them an argument that these notices are no longer valid,” she said.
Fire and Emergency and the union have had a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
– RNZ