Over a dozen firefighters picketed outside the Interior Ministry in Vilnius, saying their service is severely understaffed and underfunded.
The firefighters gathered near the ministry in the afternoon on Thursday and held placards saying “How much more will you save at the expense of people's safety?”, “The shortage of 1,000 firefighters has become the norm in 11 years”, and “How much longer will we play with fire?”.
Firefighters also brought dummies that looked like them to underline the shortage of officers.
“The main focus of this protest is that the State Fire Service is short of a thousand firefighters. In fact, one in three firefighters is missing. That is, two people have to do the job of three and sometimes five work for nine,” Miroslavas Gerasimovičius, chairman of the Firefighters' Union, told reporters on Thursday.
“We have been raising this problem for years, but it has not been addressed,” he added.
According to the union president, even though funding is increasing, the problem is that there are not enough positions to hire the needed firefighters to do the job.
“The profession is in demand and we have over three applicants for a place at the Firefighters’ School. There are also people who want to continue in the job after the age of retirement, but it is funding that does not allow us to to keep experienced officers,” said Gerasimovičius.
According to him, the monthly salary of a starting firefighter is less than 900 euros after tax.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė said that the salary was amounts to 1,100 euros.
Trade unions on Wednesday appealed to the ministry for an additional 1.5 million euros for the second half of this year. Gerasimovičius said that the union is also seeking an additional 3 million euros for firefighters each year for the coming five years.
“This way, we could gradually bridge the shortage and reach the standard that the government has set,” he said.
If the ministry does not heed firefighters’ demands, Gerasimovičius added, the union will take “stricter measures”. He did not specify what they were.
Deputy Interior Minister Vitalijus Dmitrijevas also came out to talk to the firefighters during the picket.
He reiterated what Minister Bilotaitė had said earlier on Thursday, that the budget of the Fire and Rescue Department had increased by 30 percent.
Saulius Džiutas, chairman of the National Association of Trade Unions of Officials, said firefighters face excessive workload and health problems.
“When two people get out of a fire truck instead of six, and people expect help, that they will have pull things out and enter the fire – they have to wait for another car because a firefighter cannot enter a building on fire alone. [...] You wait 10–15 minutes, and in that time a house is gone and lives are gone,” said Džiautas.
According to the data of the trade union, there are currently about 4,000 firefighters working in Lithuania.
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