Up to 20 times more: overtime increases for Saguenay firefighters

Overtime hours worked by firefighters from the Saguenay Fire Department have more than exploded, while costs are approaching a million dollars for 2024.

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Surplus hours are almost 20 times greater than five years ago, according to what has been learned TVA News due to a request for access to information. A new collective agreement, which modifies the organization of work, would be in question. “It was difficult to get time off, and vacations were limited. For us, it was a negotiation issue,” said the president of the Saguenay firefighters’ union, David Girard.

This is what firefighters’ overtime looks like:

• 2019: 650 hours
• 2023: 12,300 hours
• 2024: 11,600 hours (until August 31)

These increases also have an impact on budgetary costs. The bill went from $34,000 in 2019 to more than $730,000 today. These are figures that are 21 times greater.

The director of the Fire Department, however, wants to qualify this explosion of figures, which does not translate into an increase in the overall budget for activities. “Yes, we have the additional time envelope [sic]but the money that we do not use for temporary workers, we put it in the additional time envelope,” explained Éric Morin.

Fewer temporary employees

The number of temporary employees was around 40 a few years ago. Since then, this figure has fallen by half.

The Fire Department indicated that there are savings made by having permanent employees work more overtime rather than maintaining temporary employees, who were often not available.

“Each firefighter must have two combat suits, we are talking about 9,000 dollars, plus maintenance costs. There is also training where each employee must have 100 hours,” said Éric Morin, specifying that these expenses were enormous for employees who frequently refused shifts.

The latter, not having guaranteed hours, often ended up finding another job, which he prioritized over the fire department.

The management and union parties affirm that work-family balance is much better since these changes. The allocation of overtime made it possible to grant more leave and vacation to the engineers when they were requested.