Firemen heated about alleged allowance cut

Having coaxed a fellow firefighter off the top of the Half-Way Tree Transport Centre, Corporal Leo Bennett warns that the despair which drove his colleague to the edge is spreading across the Jamaica Fire Brigade.

Rank-and-file members say wage cuts, brutal hours, and squalid conditions are pushing them past breaking point. Yesterday at York Park Fire Station in Kingston, a scheduled meeting with Commissioner Stewart Beckford reportedly erupted into protest after firefighters learnt that their long-standing "call-out" allowance is allegedly being cut under a new overtime system. To replace the lost income, they would have to work longer hours, capped by limits that many say will never allow them to recover what is being taken away. Tensions flared when Beckford insisted there should be no recordings.

"We decided that we had a right to capture the information being provided to us because we can't go into September not knowing how our children's school fee will be paid or how our Probox insurance will be paid," Bennett told THE STAR. Police were then called to the station. For the men on the ground, the wage cut is not a matter of accounting, but survival.

"Most of us live in the Portmore and Old Harbour region. The toll has increased, the cost of daily living is unbearable, and we are still expected to work under these conditions," Bennett said, appealing to Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding.

"We cannot accept any reduction in our salary right now."

What angers firefighters even more is that senior officers, from superintendents up to the commissioner, will keep allowances that are being cut from lower ranks.

"How can men who can't even afford lunch after the second week be the same ones sent to pull hoses and battle bush fires in the hills, while the leaders keep their full pay?" Bennett questioned. "You have lost all moral authority as leaders."

The financial stress bleeds into every part of their lives. One firefighter, who said he has three children, admitted that most firefighters need a side hustle to keep afloat. Another warned that young recruits are being pulled into debt the moment they join. Inside the fire stations, conditions are grim.

"The work conditions are very poor, roach and rat a the order it be a dem place yah," one firefighter said. "We don't have no running water in a fire station. Majority of the stations, we have to fill the tanks, and you bathe wid that water. Yuh skin rash up." Others say the bigger weight is psychological.

"It's not the situation that is bothering, but the disheartening and condescending tone that the leaders come to us with. People on the outside think we are well-off, but we are bruck. We are just slaves," one man told THE STAR.

They firefighters say the toll is proving deadly, as a colleague from St Thomas recently collapsed and died from overwork.

"In the past year, men in their twenties and thirties just drop down," Bennett said. "Fitness is a requirement for our job, but the exhaustion is killing us." Recalling the infamous event in Half-Way Tree, the firefighters opined that it could have been any of them on the transport centre's roof.

One seven-year veteran admitted that he regrets choosing the career.

"I became a firefighter because I grew up around firefighters and the discipline I saw inspired me. I wanted to help. But it seems like the worst decision mi ever make inna mi life."

Despite repeated appeals, THE STAR's request for comment from Beckford was met only with, "Regrettably, I am not in a position to comment."

For Bennett, the flag now flying at half-mast outside fire stations is not only protest, but warning.

"We are supposed to be the people you call when disaster strikes," one firefighter said. "How can we serve at our best when we are treated like this?"