Firefighters' strike - Nov 5th

Impeccable timing by the FBU.

BBC Report
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SPICE WEED

 

[metimmee]

I really hope that those slagging off the FBU don't find themselves in a similar situation in the future and have to reconsider their views. It's all too easy to criticise from a side of the fence that we shall find ourselves on the other side of sooner or later.

My criticism is levied at the muppets who chose to schedule a strike on 5 Nov, not their right to take action due to changing conditions.

 

[justintime129]

My criticism is levied at the muppets who chose to strike on 5 Nov, not their right to take action due to changing conditions.

Well you've got your wish those so called muppets will be working because the company who are being paid millions of rate payers money are incompetent.

So they can only strike when it suits the public. Anybody who strikes will always put somebody out. As long as everything as been done in accordance with the law then you should be able to strike or take industrial action when you want.

 

[True Blue Jack]

So they can only strike when it suits the public.

Strike action can only succeed if the strikers maintain public support. So in a word, yes.

 

[metimmee]

Well you've got your wish those so called muppets will be working because the company who are being paid millions of rate payers money are incompetent.

So they can only strike when it suits the public. Anybody who strikes will always put somebody out. As long as everything as been done in accordance with the law then you should be able to strike or take industrial action when you want.

Unfortunately, part and parcel of the cause that the FBU is fighting is to handle the media and to court public opinion. My criticism is entirely of the tactics employed by the FBU. In my view, they have scored an own goal and employed a nice bit of face saving (and transparent) spin in the cancellation of the strike. In the past they have put forward decent arguements about public safety etc. but by choosing to select the symbolic 5 Nov, all attention focussed on the date and not the cause that the FBU were fighting for.

 

[justintime129]

Fires don't go away so whenever they chose to strike would have got members of the public upset. Just like the nhs when would be a good time for them to go on strike. I'm sure the majority of the firemen don't want to strike but sometimes you have to make a point else your employer will walk all over you. It's not come to that yet but never say never with this shower in charge of the country.

 

[True Blue Jack]

Fires don't go away so whenever they chose to strike would have got members of the public upset. Just like the nhs when would be a good time for them to go on strike. I'm sure the majority of the firemen don't want to strike but sometimes you have to make a point else your employer will walk all over you. It's not come to that yet but never say never with this shower in charge of the country.

Off TopicAahh, now we come to it, I'd forgotten you were a Blair/Brown apologist.

Industrial action is sometimes necessary. Many of the working practices we now take for granted were born as a result of such action (although none in the last 30 years of which I am aware).

Give me some concrete evidence that the LFEPA are trying to get one over on the rank and file firefighters to the detriment of the safety of the London public and I will support the strikers. Until then, I remain ambivalent.

 

[justintime129]

Off TopicAahh, now we come to it, I'd forgotten you were a Blair/Brown apologist.

Industrial action is sometimes necessary. Many of the working practices we now take for granted were born as a result of such action (although none in the last 30 years of which I am aware).

Give me some concrete evidence that the LFEPA are trying to get one over on the rank and file firefighters to the detriment of the safety of the London public and I will support the strikers. Until then, I remain ambivalent.

At the end of the day neither yourself or me have any near to knowing who is right and who is wrong, but from reading what firestorm has to say I'd go with the fbu. Also what employer puts the threat of mass sackings if they aren't looking for a confrontation of some sort. That's enough to wind anybody up.

 

[firestorm]

Coleman seems a very loathsome person. Daily mirror reports him getting wind and dined by assetco before the contract was awarded also see he claimed thousands in travel claims despite having a bus pass. Hypocrite of the first order.

He was finally forced to publish his expenses last year, after he said "it's non of the publics business".
You can find them here- http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/TheWayWeWork.asp

He is indeed a loathsome individual and a hypocrite. I could fill pages about this toad and his vile ways.

 

[firestorm]

Impressive, the firefighting professionals have figured out that striking on bonfire night would be a threat to public safety - what a PR diasaster by the FBU.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[firestorm]

Or the employees saying no we won't. It takes 2 to tango and I am still struggling to see what is driving this dispute other than bloody-mindedness on the part of the union. I remain convinced that the FBU has done its members absolutely no favours

The FBU has got the sackings suspended and forced independant arbitration.
You say bloody minded but can I remind you that the FBU negotiated shift change in every other brigade without the need to terminate contracts. Its the LFB that has been bloody minded and dictatorial in this.

 

[firestorm]

My criticism is levied at the muppets who chose to schedule a strike on 5 Nov, not their right to take action due to changing conditions.

I'm not sure you understand how industrial action works. We had 2 strikes before the 5/6 Nov strikes and no one knew about them.
This strike brought the issue into the public forum.
Now if you wanted to to prove a point to your boss would you do it in a way he didn't notice?

 

[firestorm]

Strike action can only succeed if the strikers maintain public support. So in a word, yes.

Public support matters if the public are well informed, not duped by propaganda, as many have been and continue to be.

 

[firestorm]

Off TopicAahh, now we come to it, I'd forgotten you were a Blair/Brown apologist.

Industrial action is sometimes necessary. Many of the working practices we now take for granted were born as a result of such action (although none in the last 30 years of which I am aware).

Give me some concrete evidence that the LFEPA are trying to get one over on the rank and file firefighters to the detriment of the safety of the London public and I will support the strikers. Until then, I remain ambivalent.

The proposal document is here, its a bit dry but stick with it.

http://www.firebrigadedispute.co.uk/articles/secr-doc-part-II.pdf

It includes the breaking up of the watch structure, moving to a pool based system. Enforced temporary promotion, reduction in crewing levels, reduction in the rank of appliance commanders, reduction in cover and nightime closures. As well as achieving this through equalised shifts. (12's)

Management denied this was the route cause of the dispute, they even said they'd not discussed it.
this proved they lied.
The LFB also have a department engaged in how the LFB can be put into the hands of private business, removing it from the public sector. Assetco now own our fire engines and most of the equipment on them as well as our breathing apparatus. We don't even own our fire gear, thats rented.

If you want me to explain any jargon I'd be happy to.

When asked on radio if the LFB had any plans to reduce night cover he repied, "absolutly not!"
When pressed again he said, "Find evidence to prove other wise and I'll resign!" ......he's still here.

 

[raflad67]

I understand the need to bring the dispute into the public domain but while doing so do you not think it rather stupid to propose a strike on bonfire night?

Many of the general public will only see the fact that the Fire Service are going to strike on BONFIRE NIGHT....and therefore will be putting lives at risk etc...they will not understand the reasons behind the dispute.

Perhaps the FBU need Max Clifford to help them out DT_Xtremez_14:

 

[firestorm]

Yet the bonfire night/diwali strike threat worked.
We certainly need someone to help us out in the press, as the media can't or wont report the real issue, instead they feel they have to talk about "gold plated pensions" they're not, they're bloody expensive!
"They have 2 jobs!" Yet we have a 48 hour week!
"They claim London weighting, yet many don't live in London!" ..but use the allowance to travel in to work.

I wonder how the public will feel when the cuts start coming thick and fast and their local station closes for the night (or for good) and our ever growing attendance times become similar to the police service?

 

[RAF Vale]

Yet the bonfire night/diwali strike threat worked.
We certainly need someone to help us out in the press, as the media can't or wont report the real issue, instead they feel they have to talk about "gold plated pensions" they're not, they're bloody expensive!
"They have 2 jobs!" Yet we have a 48 hour week!
"They claim London weighting, yet many don't live in London!" ..but use the allowance to travel in to work.

I wonder how the public will feel when the cuts start coming thick and fast and their local station closes for the night (or for good) and our ever growing attendance times become similar to the police service?

Sorry mate, but as someone who live and works in London the strike was well covered in the local press, TV and radio. I don’t think either side come out overly media savvy

As with most people I would never knock the job that you do. But I have to say most people in London are getting a little fed up with strikes. Whether it’s the FBU or the RMT both are on sticky ground considering the amount of unemployment at the moment.

 

[True Blue Jack]

The proposal document is here, its a bit dry but stick with it.

Thanks for that. I've only skimmed through it for the moment, I'll read it more thoroughly later.

From what I've made out so far there are options to reduce crew sizes from 5 to 4 firefighters. What this actually means is that crews will still be manned to 5 people but you won't need to call on a standby if your crew goes one man down. Given what you said earlier about having worked out of 40 different stations because of the standby burden that change seems sensible (providing that 4 firefighters per appliance is sufficient, of course).

I did pick up on the bit about taking 10 appliances offline at night, freeing up 50 or so firefighters to undertake daytime 'corporate initiatives' (whatever they are). This would leave London with only 158 fire appliances at night.

It would appear that the LFB have tried to bring in these changes stealthily and been found out - not a good way to do business, I agree. Realistically, what would be the likely impact of these changes? Do you believe 158 appliances to be insufficient to the task?

 

[firestorm]

TBJ. The proposal to reduce crewing from 5 to 4 is at a one appliance station. These stations are usually out in the 'burbs and the nearest cover is sometimes 5 to 10 minutes away, sometimes more.
4 people does not allow me to commit a BA crew safely. I did it recently to a house fire (at another station) and one of my crew got injured.
Personally I was very pleased we'd saved this home (but gutted that I'd got one of my guys injured) and its neighboring properties by our early intervention, but I was disciplined for not having a sufficient safe system of work in place to cover my BA crew.
Now my employers want to make this the norm, I can't win.

If you want an explanation of what safe systems of work you need at a fire I'd be happy to tell you either here or by PM.

A lot of the info in the report a jargon, but the gist of it is saving costs at the front line by further reductions to service delivery and removal of higher supervision in command and control at incidents.

Is 158 machines enough of a night? Well that depends on whats happening. When we have several big incidents running at night (and big incidents usually happen at night, for reasons I can explain if you like?) we get really pushed for resources. Removing 10 will be a strain on this. I've been to incidents recently were the OIC has requested further resources and have been told, "No, we don't have any more." That is very, very worrying.
Now we all know that cuts are coming, multi appliance stations in London will be cut, but these cuts come on top of reductions we've already faced.
Fire deaths in the capital are up, funny enough so are attendance times for fires. There is a direct correlation between the 2.

Again today and tonight we will be down many appliances, the LFB has removed 27 for use with the assetco mob and still we don't have enough officers to keep stations open as the LFB has run on temporary promotion for years. Why bother promoting someone when you can pay them £1.50 a day to do it?
The people who've refused to undertake temporary promotion (at £1.50 a day) have been docked 20% of their pay. The fella I replaced had a £350 deduction this month. No wonder they want to make temporary promotion compulsory.

 

[True Blue Jack]

Thank you firestorm. As ever in these situations, the facts are often obscured by each side's rhetoric and I find it useful to get back to basics before making my mind up. I was BA crew in Hull during 2002/3 so I at least have a working understanding of safe practices.

Thanks to your detailed explanation I now have a better understanding of the issues and I have to say I support your cause. But if you are to have any hope of success I'm afraid the FBU needs a much better PR machine and a general secretary who is less prone to Nye Bevan style rhetoric - it doesn't win friends in this day and age.

 

[justintime129]

To financially penalize someone by docking their pay for refusing promotion (albeit temporary) is just scandalous and asking for some sort of industrial action.