Some reward

As I write this entry, our colleagues in the Operations rooms are returning to work after their 24 hours of industrial action over pay and conditions.

Whilst we (Coastguard Rescue Officers) are classed as volunteers, there is a small amount of reimbursement (or pay!) for our efforts.

The station gets about £11,000 a year to run, this covers the 100 + incidents we normally get, 2 hours paid training a month that we can claim for (we normally do the rest voluntary), 18 hours a month looking after and checking the equipment (not each! per station), 5 or 6 hours a month to do the paperwork and attend meetings etc.

So to give you an example:

On a call out, the moment you get paged, you get 3 hours pay;

3 X £5.52 (yes that's the national minimum wage rate) = £16.56

The incident could last 10 minutes or 3 hours, that what you get, however get called again within the 3 hours and ....you don't get paid again.

£16.56 perhaps isn't too bad for a disturbed meal or lack of sleep,however I forgot to say the tax man then has his chunk and as most of us are already employed, he taxes us at basic rate of 25%, so the final figure is.....£12.42 a call out

I think you might see why we are called volunteers.