THE island’s firefighters have given the government two weeks within which to honour its end of the second public sector Memorandum of Understanding (MoU 2) and resolve the matter of outstanding promotions, failing which they say, they will be forced to take strike action.

At the end of a closed-door meeting with the local government ministry, and three of the unions representing them yesterday, the firefighters agreed to give the government time to meet their demands.

According to the joint statement issued by all three parties, they will make a joint submission to the monitoring committee of the MoU…(and) request the MoU 2 committee to review the matter at hand in light of clause 6 (ii), with a view to resolving the issue within the next two weeks”. During that time, the unions say the fire services will not be disrupted.

Under the MoU I2, firefighters from the rank of lance corporal, who have been acting in positions for more than six months, should be promoted, provided that clear vacancies exist.

However, public relations director at the fire brigade, Emilio Ebanks, said while there are vacancies in the brigade, the board has “misinterpreted” the clause and is refusing to elevate workers without them having previously sat a promotions examination.

“The MoU did not stipulate that we do the exam before, it said if we’ve been acting in the positions for more than six months we’ll be promoted and to make matters worse, there has not been a promotions exam for the past two years,” he said.

Prior to the convention of the meeting, Ebanks indicated that the strike was still tentative.

“It has not yet been confirmed nor called off,” he said, adding that if the government fails to make good on its promises, the strike “might be imminent”.