Time runs out for FBU leaders

Time has run out for the leaders of the Fire Brigades Union. The New Labour government has left them nowhere to hide after pressing ahead with the plan to impose a jobs cuts package on firefighters. FBU leaders now have to put up or shut up.

All the FBU leaders have to show for six months of wavering is the Fire Services Bill, which gives deputy prime minister Prescott the power to impose new pay and working conditions. In addition, new guidelines sent to local councils call for an end to national standards of fire cover, envisage the closure of some fire stations and a system under which not all 999 calls lead to the despatch of appliances. Up to 10,000 jobs are at threat.

Strike after strike was called off, often at the last moment in the futile hope that the government would accept a negotiated settlement on terms acceptable to firefighters. But each retreat has hardened the government's position and that of the employers. In London, the fire authority is ignoring key existing conditions of service and provoking the union to respond.

New Labour made it clear from the start that cost-driven "modernisation" was at the heart of its agenda. This is the reality the FBU leaders have never wanted to face up to, preferring instead to kid themselves that they could separate the issue of pay from that of jobs and conditions.

While the leadership resemble ostriches with their heads buried in the sand, by contrast the membership has showed great determination to pursue the claim for a living wage. Each strike was 100% solid and the vote to reject the last package was overwhelming. 

The plain fact is that there was no compromise last year and there is none today between a fire service run in the public interest by properly-paid workers and the New Labour blueprint. You only have to look at the NHS to see that, where foundation hospitals will deepen the privatisation process already well under way.

This is consistent with the nature of New Labour. It is a business government first and foremost. Blair, Prescott and Brown are not interested in "Old Labour" type fixes. They openly embrace capitalist ideals about competition, markets, cost centres, job flexibility and privatisation. In this context, every public sector claim for pay and conditions is a direct challenge to the whole nature of the government. The issues are about whether decisions are made for profit and cost considerations or are driven by the needs of those who deliver and use public services.  

New Labour will not allow legal considerations to stand in the way, either. The invasion of Iraq was clearly illegal in international law - but it took place. The proposal to impose a deal on firefighters also breaches European and international human rights law. But it is proceeding, with only 27 Labour MPs voting against.

Andy Gilchrist, the FBU general secretary, says the Bill will place Britain in the same category as fascist dictatorships, where trade unions were not free to reach an agreement. "It is illiberal, undemocratic and signifies an appalling attitude to international law." As that is the case, the time for talking is surely in the past.

The FBU executive has a last chance to grasp the nettle. They should declare publicly that New Labour does not want a settlement and instead plans to break the union as a unified organisation and wreck the service. FBU leaders should defy the Bill and not be panicked into accepting some rotten compromise behind their members' backs.

Above all, the FBU leaders have to acknowledge that the issues now involved are a challenge to the very existence of the trade union movement as a whole. Other unions surely realise that if New Labour is allowed to impose a deal on the FBU they are next in line for the same treatment.

These are matters of fundamental principle concerning every trade union. The FBU is therefore obliged to call on other unions who have backed their struggle to support them in action against the forcible imposition of a settlement. The TUC General Council, if it is at all serious about the history and principles of the movement, has to meet and prepare to call all unions into action against the Fire Services Bill.

Finally, the FBU and other unions should suspend financial payments to New Labour which, as Gilchrist points out, is acting like a dictatorship. Giving such a government money from poorly-paid members is nothing short of obscene and is like financing your jailers. By suspending support, the unions could help open up a discussion about the building of an alternative to New Labour which organisations such as the Network for Economic and Political Democracy are doing.

Time has indeed run out not just for the FBU but for all trade union leaders. 

Movement for a Socialist Future
12 May 2003