Firefighter union leaders Mick Shaw and Ian Leahair called for the support of other trade unions and the entire labour movement at a meeting called by the South East Region of the TUC.
“There will be picket lines at all 110 fire stations in London and other trade unionists are needed to provide physical, moral and financial support,” Shaw said last night. The Fire Brigades Union leaders were speaking in advance of strikes planned for November 1 and another beginning on Bonfire Night.
The bitter dispute between the London FBU and the London Fire Authority (LFEPA) may not seem that significant, as it involves only 5,500 operational firefighters. But the Tory leaders of the Greater London Authority (GLA) have served all working fire-fighters with notice of dismissal because they refused to sign a new contract that severely reduces their conditions. Not only is the London fire brigade the third largest firefighting organisation in the world, protecting Europe’s biggest and particularly vulnerable city from fire, but there are major political issues at stake.
Yesterday a spokesman for Prime Minister Cameron said the strike was “cynical” and “reckless” while Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned the strike as dangerous, saying it would cost lives.The government and the employers’ propaganda machine is in full swing in an attempt to swing public opinion against the firefighters. They are the most organised of all public sector workers with virtual 100% membership.
Firefighters are the most militant of public sector and have fought two bitter national strikes - both against so-called Labour governments in last 30 years. Their union broke from Labour after the 2003 dispute, which the outcome of which the present contract struggle in London is related to. New Labour wanted to break up national agreements and "modernise" the service to the detriment of public safety and firefighters' livelihoods and the GLA under the Tories is trying to enforce this. So forcing them to accept worse conditions and ultimately fewer jobs under a new contract would be a defeat for all public sector workers who are facing massive redundancies.
Labour MP John McDonnell, secretary of the FBU group in Parliament warned: “this is a provoked dispute. The model of AssetCo [the company being used for strike breaking] is the shape of the future. If the FBU do not win, job cuts will follow. This is the first wave of privatising the emergency services”.
Ian Leahair said that while the employers claimed the new contract was only about “minor shift changes”, they had spent a lot of time preparing and manipulating decisions. ”We knew this was coming. I have never seen so much bullying and harassment. Fire authority management is already docking pay by up to 80% if an instruction was not obeyed. The FBU will not be intimidated. Unless they withdraw the sacking threat, we will not call off our bonfire night strike. It’s us that go into those fires. If we could avoid this we would. Be behind us!”
Steve Hedley of the tube and rail workers union, RMT, praised the FBU’s “brave decision" to step up their strike. He said that some RMT members had refused to take out trains during last week’s strike. London Underground was threatening court action against the union. Like Jenny Sutton, chair of the London Region of University and College Union and others at the meeting, Hedley was scathing about the TUC call for a demonstration in March. “Spring is too late,” Sutton said. “We cannot wait for that for co-ordinated action. There must be a motion for a general strike.”
The concerted attack on the FBU is a test case of union-busting. Employers watching to see the outcome. The employers intend pick off groups of workers one by one. More than ever, no single group of workers can be expected to win on their own in the face of a united coalition government, vicious anti-union laws and an unprecedented financial crisis. The 500,000 jobs at stake in the public sector as a result of the cuts announced last week cannot be defeated in a series of "local disputes".
The driving down of public spending is driven by the economic and financial crisis. The only way forward is to mobilise the widest sections of the population - wherever they work - in actions that go beyond limited strikes. A World to Win’s call for a network of People’s Assemblies to be formed, to unite trade unionists and local communities and work for a transfer of power, is more timely than ever.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label London FBU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London FBU. Show all posts
Friday, October 29, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
TUC's shameful betrayal
The Trades Union Congress decision, to hold a national demonstration against the spending cuts to take place over five months after they were announced and on the eve of their implementation is shameful.
Worse, it is scheduled to take place on a Saturday, on 26 March 2011, to avoid any idea that it is a call for mid-week strike action instead of gentle stroll through the streets of London.
The context of the decision announced by TUC leader Brendan Barber on Saturday, makes it an act of betrayal as great as any during its more than 140-year history.
With 500,000 public sector workers destined to lose their jobs as the result of the deepest spending cuts in the history of British capitalism, the TUC and its main members have abandoned any pretence of resistance. The decision to hold a march in five months was supported by the main public sector unions, Unison, GMB and Unite. Since the Spending Review was announced, these unions have stressed that they will not take action against the coalition.
A few hundred yards away, just as Barber spoke, striking London firefighters were on the march. They are threatened with the sack and the destruction of their union. The TUC is leaving the Fire Brigades Union to face destruction on its own.
Talk about the impact on jobs, pensions, wages, services etc - and that's it! It’s not simply sluggish – it’s deliberate inaction behind a smokescreen of consultation, education and protest. The TUC is acting like a focus group for the Coalition, promising to feed back public anger so that the government will "see sense".
On Saturday, Barber spouted pseudo-fiery words against the City rich:
“And the bankers who caused this mess,” he said, “will not be affected at all because the pathetically small banking levy will leave them popping the champagne corks right across the square mile.”
The real intention is to reinforce the fiction, that the Con-Dem cuts are simply “ideological”: "The impact of this brutal, ideological and cripplingly unfair [our italics] austerity will be truly devastating,” Barber told London Trades Councils representatives at Congress House.
In other words, there is no crisis of the capitalist system driving the cuts – simply a few greedy bankers.
And public service union GMB leader Paul Kenny continued the fake war by threatening the Coalition with a loss of votes: "As the plan unfolds and its impact is felt in homes and communities up and down the country, the Tory/Liberal authors will find life increasingly difficult at the ballot box," he said.
Some threat.
Some critics of the TUC want next year’s demonstration brought forward and for unions who want to fight the cuts to organise a one-day public sector general strike. But this is inadequate for a variety of reasons:
- it divides public from private sector workers (who will also lose jobs as a result of cuts)
- by limiting the strike to 24 hours turns a general strike, which has revolutionary potential, into a protest,
- it assumes that the government will capitulate under pressure.
Experiences on the Continent, most recently France, show the opposite is true. Several general strikes have failed to move Sarkozy over pensions. At the end of last week, state forces were used to end blockades of fuel depots while the Senate approved the changes. Sarkozy is not for turning and nor is the Cameron/Clegg coalition. At their backs is the global economic crisis and yawning budget deficits which grow larger by the day.
The strike weapon is limited when the issues are about a crisis of the economic system and the power of the state. Strikes need to be supplemented by wider actions. A revolutionary mobilisation is needed to unite communities in a way that challenges the authority and power of government and the state machine.
A strategy of developing People’s Assemblies offers a real way forward to unite all those fighting the cuts. The urgent need is to expose the treachery of the trade union leadership by campaigning for a transfer of power on to a democratically elected network of Peoples Assemblies.
Paul Feldman and Corinna Lotz
A World to Win
Worse, it is scheduled to take place on a Saturday, on 26 March 2011, to avoid any idea that it is a call for mid-week strike action instead of gentle stroll through the streets of London.
The context of the decision announced by TUC leader Brendan Barber on Saturday, makes it an act of betrayal as great as any during its more than 140-year history.
With 500,000 public sector workers destined to lose their jobs as the result of the deepest spending cuts in the history of British capitalism, the TUC and its main members have abandoned any pretence of resistance. The decision to hold a march in five months was supported by the main public sector unions, Unison, GMB and Unite. Since the Spending Review was announced, these unions have stressed that they will not take action against the coalition.
A few hundred yards away, just as Barber spoke, striking London firefighters were on the march. They are threatened with the sack and the destruction of their union. The TUC is leaving the Fire Brigades Union to face destruction on its own.
Talk about the impact on jobs, pensions, wages, services etc - and that's it! It’s not simply sluggish – it’s deliberate inaction behind a smokescreen of consultation, education and protest. The TUC is acting like a focus group for the Coalition, promising to feed back public anger so that the government will "see sense".
On Saturday, Barber spouted pseudo-fiery words against the City rich:
“And the bankers who caused this mess,” he said, “will not be affected at all because the pathetically small banking levy will leave them popping the champagne corks right across the square mile.”
The real intention is to reinforce the fiction, that the Con-Dem cuts are simply “ideological”: "The impact of this brutal, ideological and cripplingly unfair [our italics] austerity will be truly devastating,” Barber told London Trades Councils representatives at Congress House.
In other words, there is no crisis of the capitalist system driving the cuts – simply a few greedy bankers.
And public service union GMB leader Paul Kenny continued the fake war by threatening the Coalition with a loss of votes: "As the plan unfolds and its impact is felt in homes and communities up and down the country, the Tory/Liberal authors will find life increasingly difficult at the ballot box," he said.
Some threat.
Some critics of the TUC want next year’s demonstration brought forward and for unions who want to fight the cuts to organise a one-day public sector general strike. But this is inadequate for a variety of reasons:
- it divides public from private sector workers (who will also lose jobs as a result of cuts)
- by limiting the strike to 24 hours turns a general strike, which has revolutionary potential, into a protest,
- it assumes that the government will capitulate under pressure.
Experiences on the Continent, most recently France, show the opposite is true. Several general strikes have failed to move Sarkozy over pensions. At the end of last week, state forces were used to end blockades of fuel depots while the Senate approved the changes. Sarkozy is not for turning and nor is the Cameron/Clegg coalition. At their backs is the global economic crisis and yawning budget deficits which grow larger by the day.
The strike weapon is limited when the issues are about a crisis of the economic system and the power of the state. Strikes need to be supplemented by wider actions. A revolutionary mobilisation is needed to unite communities in a way that challenges the authority and power of government and the state machine.
A strategy of developing People’s Assemblies offers a real way forward to unite all those fighting the cuts. The urgent need is to expose the treachery of the trade union leadership by campaigning for a transfer of power on to a democratically elected network of Peoples Assemblies.
Paul Feldman and Corinna Lotz
A World to Win
Monday, October 18, 2010
Firefighters' union fights for its future
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which has consistently fought to defend the wages and conditions of its members, is about to engage in a momentous struggle in London that could well determine its very future as an organisation. So much is at stake that the FBU needs all the practical and active support it can muster from other unions.
Tory leaders of the Greater London Authority (GLA) are planning to sack over 5,600 firefighters and re-employ only those prepared to sign a new contract that severely reduces their conditions. The contract is being unilaterally imposed after the London FBU failed to reach a negotiated agreement with the employers.
The capital's firefighters are to stage eight-hour walkouts on 23 October and 1 November following a strike ballot in which 79% of FBU members voted in favour. Employers have already removed 27 fire engines from stations and handed them to private contractor AssetCo, which has strike breakers standing by.
That fire engines can be handed over just like that to a private firm is a result of decisions taken by the previous New Labour government, which the Tories are building on. It never forgave the FBU for holding a national strike eight years ago which led ultimately to the union’s break from Labour.
Conservative chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Brian Coleman said: "I have to say, firefighters who don't sign the new contract won't be re-employed." In a reference to former US president Ronald Reagan's move to sack 11,000 striking air traffic controllers who refused to return to work in the early 80s, Coleman told London radio station LBC: "If it means 'doing a Ronald Reagan' – where he got rid of the air traffic controllers – I've got 948 firefighters who voted not to go on strike, together with the non-union members and the officers, I reckon 2,000 will sign their new contract."
Fire commissioner Ron Dobson and Coleman want to extend the day shift by two or three hours, a move which would wreak havoc on FBU members’ family lives as well as lead to cuts in fire cover throughout the capital (as revealed in a top-secret document leaked to the FBU). Thousands of firefighters have rallied and marched since the moves were announced in August.
London FBU leaders who called the strike ballot urged firefighters not to “be bullied out of our jobs”, and told them that a “yes” vote “may be the single most important act of your career”. Members responded positively, with an overwhelming “yes” on a 79% turnout.
The GLA’s anti-union stance is in a foretaste of what is rapidly coming up the line. Workers throughout the public sector are preparing to defend jobs, services and working conditions ater the spending axe falls this week. The FBU is joining a march against the cuts this Saturday, called by the rail union RMT, and is organising its own rally and lobby of Parliament on November 17 against systematic plans to wreck the fire service.
Clearly the FBU and the RMT, which is striking against job cuts on the Underground, are the first in the firing line. With the destruction of the FBU as an organisation the aim of the Tories, the old union adage that an injury to one is an injury to all was never more appropriate.
FBU and RMT leaders should appeal to their members to support joint, indefinite strikes against the cuts and the Tory-led GLA. Such a call could inspire other workers in the public sectors whose own union leaders are running for cover rather than standing firm. RMT leader Bob Crow has already called for unions to link up with local communities to broaden the fight against the coalition. The vicious attack on the FBU is as good an opportunity as any to put that policy into practice.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Tory leaders of the Greater London Authority (GLA) are planning to sack over 5,600 firefighters and re-employ only those prepared to sign a new contract that severely reduces their conditions. The contract is being unilaterally imposed after the London FBU failed to reach a negotiated agreement with the employers.
The capital's firefighters are to stage eight-hour walkouts on 23 October and 1 November following a strike ballot in which 79% of FBU members voted in favour. Employers have already removed 27 fire engines from stations and handed them to private contractor AssetCo, which has strike breakers standing by.
That fire engines can be handed over just like that to a private firm is a result of decisions taken by the previous New Labour government, which the Tories are building on. It never forgave the FBU for holding a national strike eight years ago which led ultimately to the union’s break from Labour.
Conservative chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Brian Coleman said: "I have to say, firefighters who don't sign the new contract won't be re-employed." In a reference to former US president Ronald Reagan's move to sack 11,000 striking air traffic controllers who refused to return to work in the early 80s, Coleman told London radio station LBC: "If it means 'doing a Ronald Reagan' – where he got rid of the air traffic controllers – I've got 948 firefighters who voted not to go on strike, together with the non-union members and the officers, I reckon 2,000 will sign their new contract."
Fire commissioner Ron Dobson and Coleman want to extend the day shift by two or three hours, a move which would wreak havoc on FBU members’ family lives as well as lead to cuts in fire cover throughout the capital (as revealed in a top-secret document leaked to the FBU). Thousands of firefighters have rallied and marched since the moves were announced in August.
London FBU leaders who called the strike ballot urged firefighters not to “be bullied out of our jobs”, and told them that a “yes” vote “may be the single most important act of your career”. Members responded positively, with an overwhelming “yes” on a 79% turnout.
The GLA’s anti-union stance is in a foretaste of what is rapidly coming up the line. Workers throughout the public sector are preparing to defend jobs, services and working conditions ater the spending axe falls this week. The FBU is joining a march against the cuts this Saturday, called by the rail union RMT, and is organising its own rally and lobby of Parliament on November 17 against systematic plans to wreck the fire service.
Clearly the FBU and the RMT, which is striking against job cuts on the Underground, are the first in the firing line. With the destruction of the FBU as an organisation the aim of the Tories, the old union adage that an injury to one is an injury to all was never more appropriate.
FBU and RMT leaders should appeal to their members to support joint, indefinite strikes against the cuts and the Tory-led GLA. Such a call could inspire other workers in the public sectors whose own union leaders are running for cover rather than standing firm. RMT leader Bob Crow has already called for unions to link up with local communities to broaden the fight against the coalition. The vicious attack on the FBU is as good an opportunity as any to put that policy into practice.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
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