Meet the firefighter and nurse

Jeff Evans at work - as a firefighter and as a nurse

Gareth Jones BBC Wales Business Editor

Jeff Evans is one of Wales's 1,700 retained firefighters.

As a part-timer, he must always be within five minutes of Merthyr Tydfil fire station on a pager waiting for an emergency call.

He usually has a call every day.

If firemen want a pay rise, it's only fair they must accept change too

Staff nurse Carol Jones

On Wednesday night, though, his five-minute journey to the fire station is to join his full-time colleagues on the picket line.

His union, the FBU, is fighting for a pay increase well above inflation.

As we travel to the station, Jeff tells me the pay claim is justified because the job is so demanding.

"I'm relaxed today because it's not a normal situation.

"But if this was a call out, I just wouldn't know what to expect.

"Fireman get called out to road traffic accidents, anything.

"Car fires are very dangerous now. Sometimes LPG conversion cars have gas cylinders in them and they can explode.

Nurses should be paid the same, says Mr Evans

"House fire can be dangerous because of double-glazing and what we call blow-backs.

"Firemen have actually died in house fires."

In a few minutes, we arrive at the picket line outside Merthyr Tydfil fire station.

Jeff joins about a dozen men gathered around a roaring brazier or watching the TV news.

They are a mixture of full-timers and part-timers.

Jeff explains that part-timers are paid a call-out fee of £14 and £18.20 for every hour they work.

He says that is too low - as is the salary of a full-time firefighter which stands at around £21,500 after 5 years.

Firefighters must modernise, says colleague Carol

"The retained fire service has terrible trouble recruiting people because people don't like the commitment and the effect on their social lives.

"We have to work very hard to get recruits. If we got more money there would be more recruits.

"We're like everyone else in the public sector - we've fallen behind,' he said.

Jeff should know about how much other public sector workers get.

The very next day he is back at work - not as a firefighter but as a nurse at Merthyr Tydfil's Prince Charles Hospital.

'Stresses'

He works in a 37-and-a-half hour week in casualty in between the times he is on call for the fire service.

There has been some debate over whether firefighters should be demanding a pay rise that would take them well ahead of, for example, nurses.

Jeff is in an excellent position to judge who deserves more.

"Should nurses get more than firefighters?" I ask him.

"Yes," he replies, "or at least the same."

"We both have our stresses. Firefighters never know what's coming at them. That's stressful.

Colleagues

"As a nurse I work in a more controlled environment. But the demands are more continuous as a nurse."

In fact, as a nurse, Jeff earns a lot less than his full-time fire-fighter colleagues.

He is on £19,000 a year.

I talk to Jeff as he's taking a break in the nurses rest-room with colleagues from the accident and emergency department.

There is strong support from them for Jeff and the firefighters. They are even organising a collection.

Around the table are ambulance technician Richard Selway, who earns £21,000, newly qualified nurse, Trudy Jones, who earns £16,000, and Carol Jones who is on £19,000 after 25 years experience as a nurse.

Restrictive practices

Carol tells Jeff firefighters should get more, but with strings attached.

She thinks they should listen to the demands of the government and employers that the fire service should 'modernise' and get rid of alleged restrictive practices.

"If firemen want a pay rise, it's only fair they must accept change too. We have," said Carol.

"I agree they should get a pay rise of between 11% and 16% and that should apply to all of us across the public sector'.

Jeff counters, though, that the fire-service has been modernising and changing.

Deals

Its now much more heavily involved in working with the community, for example, to encourage fire-prevention.

It is pretty clear then that many in the public sector believe they deserve far more than they are getting and are watching this dispute very carefully.

But who deserves more and what kind of deals will have to be struck is likely to be one of the major issues facing government and employers in the coming months.