President of the Federation assumes that firefighters are “conditioned” by an inflation rate “that has not been known for more than 30 years”
The president of the Federation of Firefighters of the Azores (FBA) considers that political agents and institutions should “look differently” at firefighters, at a time when inflation is creating serious difficulties for their activity.
“The government, the deputies, the mayors, the political institutions have to look differently at our firefighters, starting by dialoguing and delivering to the humanitarian associations sufficient financial allocations so that their sustainability does not worsen, in the face of rising fuel prices, products and equipment and remuneration, conditioned that we are by an inflation rate that has not been known for more than 30 years “, says José Braia Ferreira. He calls for unity among the various corporations in order to sacrifice the “individual” in “the name of the collective”.
The president of the FBA recently joined the solemn commemorative session of the 144th anniversary of the Humanitarian Association of Volunteer Firefighters of Ponta Delgada and at that time also expressed his position, listing what needs to be done in the Azores by the ‘soldiers of peace’. Among the demands include the creation of the statute of the Voluntary Associative Leader, so that there are “associative leaders aware of their duties and participatory, but also with rights”, and the revision of the organic structure of the Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service of the Azores in order to contemplate a fire command. But that is not all. This list also includes, among other aspects, the approval and publication of the Legal Regime of the Firefighter of the Azores, aka Social Statute, already agreed with the FBA and associations, and the completion of the financing and sustainability project of the Azorean rescue system, through associations and fire departments.
“I appeal (…) to all associative leaders, commands and firefighters to unite around the strategic objectives in the defense of Azorean firefighters”, he stressed.
Braia Ferreira notes that without financially balanced corporations, they cannot guarantee their solvency, nor can they “build management tools to support the creation of career and remuneration models for firefighters with employment contracts”.
In fact, “without a Framework Law on the Financing of Firefighters, which provides for the creation of ‘Program Contracts’, expressing the responsibilities of each of the parties, the survival of this unique movement of expression of citizenship – the volunteer firefighters – has its days numbered”.
