WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Call to pay SES volunteers in Queensland

Disaster-weary ... SES volunteers in Queensland want to be paid for their assistance during storms and cyclones.

SES volunteers want to be paid
Struggling to take time off work
Mum's sorrow for daughter swept away
DISASTER-weary State Emergency Service volunteers want to be paid to keep them turning out to storms and floods as the financial crisis bites deeper.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24 ... rrer=email

So They should be paid in this case....

Hmmm, I disagree with the state government paying SES members directly as that kind of defeats the purpose of volunteering. However when personnell are away from work with the reserves workplaces receive a payment from the ADF. Something similar to this could be instigated for major operations. If you release your employee for operations longer than 3 days then we will cover 60% of the wages. This would then be payed to the company and assist the company in paying the employee's wages. While it isn't perfect for the company it's better than forcing employee's to take annual leave which they would then have to pay 100% of the wages rather than 40%. If the wages go direct to the volunteer then there is the possiblity of them claiming those wages plus wages from work if work is accomodating to volunteers.

Work always paid me for call outs that happened b4 over time kicked in, as a sign of support to the community, they also raised money for the Ambulance through our Harvester school days, where farmers come in and we teach them how to clean their machine before we come out to service it (which they never do), or little things that can be fixed on farm, with out calling us out at a cool $90 a hour