UPDATES
E-mail to hear about site changes, placing 'update' in body of message

FBU must ask for solidarity strikes

If any firefighter still had any doubts, Prime Minister Blair has made New Labour's agenda clear: the price for any pay rise is an acceptance by the FBU of the Bain report, which means job cuts and the destruction of working conditions. Blair has thrown down the gauntlet and put the government’s authority and survival on the line.

For these reasons, John Edmonds, the general secretary of the GMB union, is absolutely right when he says that this is no longer just a dispute between the firefighters and the government but between New Labour and the whole trade union movement. John Monks, the moderate TUC general secretary, has sent an email to all unions urging them to support the firefighters because even he sees what is at stake.

Andy Gilchrist, the FBU general secretary, is also correct to say: "Do we or do we not want to live in a society which places a real value on public service?" New Labour has answered this question in the negative many times over as NHS workers, teachers and other public sector staff will testify. They have already suffered from the "modernisation" lined up for the fire service.

The FBU is in a fight to the finish with the Blair government and its whole economic and political strategy of favouring the employers, the fat cats and the banks at the expense of workers. FBU leaders are therefore obliged to follow up what Edmonds and Monks have said by asking other unions to take solidarity industrial action without delay if they are to defeat the government.

London teachers are striking for decent pay and Tube workers are militantly opposed to privatisation plans. Let their leaders call them into action alongside the firefighters. For other unions to sit back and await the outcome of the firefighters' struggle is unacceptable.

Many firefighters have already decided that they will never again pay a penny towards New Labour's coffers and are pressing the FBU to disaffiliate from the party. The unions which founded the party have seen it replace the Tories as the direct representatives of big business. All affiliated unions have to recognise this fact and break from New Labour, starting a discussion on new forms of political representation. That debate has to include the creation of alternatives to an economic system that is based on greed and profit for the few at the expense of the many.

Movement for a Socialist Future
26 November 2002