Moose Jaw Forum

Can some one explain to me what all the sickness, training/other overtime hours are all about in the local firemen’s report found in the Feb 6th city council agenda. http://www.moosejaw.ca/wp-content/uploa ... genda1.pdf

Many people bank their sick days and add them to their yearly holidays...sick days with pay.
Training is paid for as well as a wage...
Overtime is what it is...banked hours that are paid out.

Nice-for those who complain about nurses wages-when I retired I had accumulated maximum sick time hours-worth around $70,000-and didn't get a penny.I had reached the maximum about 5 years before I retired. Pretty sweet contract & wages for a minimum education for these boys.

zephyrn wrote:Many people bank their sick days and add them to their yearly holidays...sick days with pay.
Training is paid for as well as a wage...
Overtime is what it is...banked hours that are paid out.

Where I come from if you worked beyond your scheduled work day or work week hours, you got paid at an overtime rate, that is the only time overtime came into the equation. If you missed work because you were sick, too bad you lost your wages for those hours of missed work, no such thing as sick days with pay. Training to improve your chances of advancement or better wages you did on your own time and expense! Training to learn about some new procedure or equipment being implemented at work was done on regular company time not overtime.

So sorry but what you are saying is about as clear as mud to me.

What are you saying, they are allotted so many sick days with pay and if they don`t use them they get to collect them at an overtime rate, not at regular rate of pay??

When it comes to training, are you saying they get paid at overtime rate along with the training itself being paid for??

If somebody is sick, another person has to come in and is paid overtime. If there is a rural call, another group has to come in. If the training is out of town, same thing.

They have to maintain a minimum number of men in the halls.

Don't they also call in a crew on overtime when a crew is on any call?

IIRC it is only when both halls are out on calls.

old fart in training wrote:If somebody is sick, another person has to come in and is paid overtime.

So when ever one of these firemen is off sick it costs us 3 times the regular rate of pay, wow! And to think, these 57 people at the fire department racked up 2758 sick time hours last year between them, which is on average 48 hours per person!?!? And these are only the sick hours that had to be covered by someone else on overtime! That is a ridiculous amount of sick time we taxpayers are getting stuck paying for, a ridiculous amount.

Actually it's probably not that bad. 12 hour shifts? works out to about 4 days per man per year. And this is a job where I do NOT want a sick employee showing up for work. Got the flu or a bad cold? Stay home till you get better. It could cost a life.

It's the same as EDO's..something city hall has..earned days off..with pay. So you get a long weekend..and not lose a day's pay..
Sick days with pay? Never belonged to a union so didn't have those either..if I didn't work, I didn't get paid.
However..at one time one could 'bank' their overtime hours and collect enough for an earned day off...
I wouldn't want a fireman who should be in bed nursing a cold or flu bug putting a fire out if my house was burning down...