THE United Professional Firefighters Union of Western Australia (UPFUWA) are continuing to ask the state government for a better negotiation deal.

The union said they presented clear, detailed data, and additional anecdotal evidence from firefighters to state government in a bid for better wages and conditions.

They were reportedly told their facts were incorrect and the budget didn’t have the capacity to address the state of the service.

Although the state government provided a second pay offer near the end of 2025, the union rejected it demanding better wages and conditions.

The UPFUWA said their counter-offer was also rejected in its entirety.

“For the first time in its history, the union has initiated the Enterprise Order process, which will see a long, costly and drawn-out fight in the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission (WAIRC), where (the union’s) claims will be independently reviewed,” they said in a statement.

UPFUWA secretary John Marsh said the state’s firefighters have had their pleas for help rejected and been labelled ungrateful by the government.

“We came to them with facts, data and evidence,” he said.

“They rejected all of it while refusing to justify how and why there’s no room in the budget for this crisis.

“They’ll find tens of millions to fight us, but nothing to help us.

“This government is playing on our biggest fear. They’re waiting on a tragedy as a wakeup call, and we don’t want to say, ‘we told you so’.

“We’ve been left with no choice but to make this historic move, and we’re committed to supporting the brave, hardworking people this government has chosen to gaslight and ignore.”

In Fireys fight for better pay (Echo News, October 10, 2025), it was reported firefighters were waiting 67 days for a response to the union’s Enterprise Bargaining Agreement counter-offer from July 25.

The UPFUWA have been documenting staffing crisis reports with Malaga station reporting trucks being offline 87 times according to the union.

The union also reported the Kiara fire station had been offline, on restricted duties or closed 26 times and Midland station had been unavailable or operating below safe staff profile 37 times, with a recent restricted duties occurrence resulting in the crew not being available for a traffic crash just 2km from their station.

Ellenbrook fire station was also unavailable 11 times according to the union.

“The career fire and rescue service is currently in a staffing crisis with hundreds more firefighters required to run the service properly,” the union said in a post to social media.

“Wages have also not kept up with CPI, experiencing actual wage reductions, and not maintaining contact with other public sector employees who have barely kept up with CPI themselves.

“To be clear, the WA career fire and rescue service, and therefore the WA community, has not benefited from an appropriate increase in staffing numbers.

“A staffing crisis currently exists.”