Firefighters hold stopwork meetings over pay

Professional firefighters have started a series of stopwork meetings today due to faltering pay negotiations.

About 1860 firefighters from Whangarei to Invercargill were to attend meetings this morning after nearly three months of failed negotiations with the New Zealand Fire Service.

New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union national secretary Derek Best said progress had been slow.

"We're in a position after three months where the Fire Service are still telling us they cannot make us any offer ... obviously the time has come to report that back to members and to discuss the current state of play," he said.

The Fire Service told the union it was not in a position to offer an increase because it had not been given "bargaining parameters" by the Crown, he said.

Firefighters would still attend emergency callouts during the meetings.

Mr Best said meetings were likely to continue into next week.

"We'll find out what feedback we'll get from members and we'll proceed accordingly," he said.

The average starting salary for a firefighter was $35,000 a year including shift work, weekends, nights and public holidays.

- NZPA