Demonstrate Fair pay for the firefighters
7 December, Central London called by the FBU, backed by the TUC

SUPPORT THE FIREFIGHTERS

Save our Fire Service
The government is intent on cutting the service, says John McDonnell MP

Bain proposals would deepen inequality
says Ruth Winters, President FBU

How can we afford a war but not pay the firefighters?
argues Diane Abbott MP, Secretary Socialist Campaign Group

NEC report:
Fire dispute looms large
This months' NEC report

Continued fall in manufacturing
Today, says Jim Mortimer, less than 37 milion people are employed in manufacturing

Fight war on poverty not public sector workers
Workers are reduced to penury while the Government prepares to squander money on a war with Iraq says Ken Livingstone,
Mayor of London

Students march against fees and graduate tax
Louise Hutchins, NUS National Executive assesses the opposition to government
proposals to make students pay more

Public opinion says no to war
Jeremy Corbyn MP outlines the continued oppostion to war on Iraq

London Labour moves forward
Rachel Garnham, London Labour Left reports on the Greater London Labour Party Biennial Meeting

Westminster News
This month's round up of parliamentary activity by Campaign group News MPs

MPs rebel on asylum
43 Labour MPs voted against the
government opposing segreation of children
writes Neil Gerrard MP

US push for formal NMD agreement
US bases Fylingdales and Menwith Hill will be upgraded to assist US NMD argues Helen John, Vice-Chiar, CND

The significance of Lula's election victory
Francisco Dominguez assesses the extraordinary political process taking place in Latin America

Government is putting lives at risk
Bob Crow, General Secretary RMT outlines the government's attitude to workers' safety
over the FBU dispute

Defend council housing
Austine Mitchell MP reports on the recent victory in Sheffield against proposed privatisation

Obituary: Frank Allaun - a lifetime commitment to peace and justice
Jeremy Corbyn pays tribute to a stalwart of the labour movement and a founder member of the Campaign Group

The 'crisis' in higher education
We need a funding system which ensures a fair representation of the population in universities
says Ian Gibson MP

Firefighters in the frontline

By Andy Gilchirst, General Secretary, FBU

Now it is clear ‘our’ Labour government will only pay public sector workers decent wages if those same workers are prepared to sacrifice jobs and the quality of the service they provide. So it is a lose-lose situation — the workers lose rights at work and the public gets an inferior service. The winners are the usual suspects — the private contractors making millions on PFI contracts on the backs of low wages; and the company directors and senior managers who receive five and six figure annual salaries and pay the lowest tax rates in Europe.
Still there will be plenty in the Chancellor’s chest to pay for the bombing, killing and maiming of Iraqi women and children. No wonder ‘our’ ministers are more comfortable addressing the CBI than they are trade union audiences and more at ease talking to squaddies than they are with pickets.

‘“our” ministers are more comfortable addressing the CBI than they are trade union audiences’

We are told to wait for Bain. Well the first results are in and, to the government’s chagrin, they are costed at £71 million extra in the first year and this without including wage costs. But ministers should not lose too much sleep because Bain will undoubtedly indicate in his next report that thousands of jobs can go to finance modest improvements in pay.
John Prescott will well remember the pitfalls of relying on official reports — the Pearson Report on the 1966 seafarers strike is mirrored by Bain. And it came out with conclusions that backed Harold Wilson’s previously expressed view that workers’ wages had to be held down in the national interest.
For Wilson read Blair and Brown, and you know most of the story.
The employers’ evidence to the Bain Inquiry into Firefighters’ Pay and Conditions shows a remarkable depth of antipathy towards the FBU. There is clearly deep resentment at the ability of the FBU to unite its membership in the struggle to protect existing agreements and to jointly regulate working practices.
For example the Local Government Association, which is dominated by New Labour councillors, say this to Bain: ‘fire authorities are being inhibited by conditions of service from making management decisions that allow resources to be used in the way they judge best.
‘It should be the responsibility of management to determine crewing levels and there can be no justification for this provision remaining.’ By this, they mean that the FBU should have no rights, apart from consultation without power, to jointly regulate working practices that go to the core of their members’ safety and the ability of the Service to respond adequately to life threatening incidents faced by vulnerable groups of the public.

‘the councillors and their central government secretariat want to reintroduce Thatcherite
management techniques to the Fire Service’

This is at the centre of the differences between the employers and the union on the misnamed ‘modernisation’ agenda. In fact, the councillors and their central government secretariat want to reintroduce Thatcherite management techniques to the Fire Service. Not for them talk of social partnership or of employee involvement. Not a whisper of industrial democracy or of the right of local communities to have a direct say in how resources are deployed. No, they want good old fashioned managerial prerogative without the constraints of strong union organisation or the democratic involvement of workers or the electorate. Some may describe this approach as warmed up That-cherism, others as a return to the old master and servant attitude to industrial relations.
Like all previous Labour governments, Blair’s administration has proved totally inflexible in dealing with public sector workers aspirations to improve their living standards. The 1945 Attlee government introduced a wage freeze and lost power within three years. Callaghan and Healey attempted to hold back wages in the 1970s and ushered in Mrs Thatcher. Now we have the Brown and Blair Show, with noises off from the Governor of the Bank of England, which is determined to keep all public sector wages down, apart from their own.
If they compound this by waging war on the Iraqi people, they may turn round and find they have no supporters left apart from bankers, company directors and the Sun editorial writers. New Labour threatens to become real Labour’s nemesis.