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More than 90 per cent of UFUA members voted for future industrial action, demanding “minimum international staffing levels for safety, better fatigue management, and fair pay rises for emergency workers” as part of enterprise negotiations. Airservices has strongly denied staff shortages.
The industrial action, which if approved could begin on Thursday 28 March just before Easter, would involve “withdrawal of nation-wide rescue and firefighting services for up to three hours and full work stoppages”, the United Firefighters Union of Australia (UFUA) said.
The funding from the Cooperative Research Centres’ Projects program will be used to create a method for using remotely-piloted electric VTOLs for aerial firefighting, modify a prototype Vertiia, ensure regulatory requirements are met, and test the Vertiia in regional Australia.
In its preliminary report, air crash investigators said voice recordings showed the pilot’s rate and volume of speech had “substantially lowered”.
The aircraft is thought to be the Coulson-operated N619SW, which has been in the state since mid-December after working previously in the US.
The United Firefighters Union aviation secretary Wes Garrett said the “in principle” agreement would also include boosting the number of airport firefighters.
