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Support the firefighters - defeat New Labour

By voting by almost nine to one to strike for a living wage, 50,000 firefighters and control staff have thrown down the biggest trade union challenge to New Labour since it came to office in 1997.

The firefighters' first national strikes for 25 years - a series of 48-hour and eight-day walkouts beginning on October 29 - are not just aimed at their local council employers, who have offered 4%.

New Labour pulls the purse strings and has already blocked a 16% offer made in response to the Fire Brigades Union’s 40% claim for a £30,000 basic for a qualified firefighter.

John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, has led the attack on the FBU. He denounced their proposed strikes as “dangerous and damaging”, while the fire minister Nick Raynsford called them “wretched and wrong”. It was Prescott, of course, who made sure Cabinet ministers got a 40% rise last year.

New Labour will send in the army to try and break the strike, just as Labour did during the last national strike in 1977-78. So a political struggle is ahead between a government that takes its marching orders from big business and one of the most militant group of trade unionists.

New Labour is desperate to defeat the firefighters and will use lies, deception and emotional appeals to discredit strikers. This is because the stakes are so high for Blair’s government.

Their idea of public services is privatisation, flexible working, low pay and weakened trade union representation. That is what the private finance initiative is all about. And that’s why, despite TUC opposition, New Labour is deepening its plans to include opted-out hospitals and schools.

The FBU is therefore right to boycott the “independent” review set up by the government. Proposals to break up the fire service as a publicly-funded operation are certain to exist in New Labour circles and come into the review.

New Labour is also determined to block the FBU claim because the government needs to reassure international financiers and corporations that Britain is not on the way to becoming a place where workers earn decent wages.

So when firefighters strike they call into question all of New Labour’s reactionary policies, including the plan for an illegal war against Iraq at a cost that far outweighs the money needed to settle the FBU claim.

Some firefighters believe that New Labour regards them with the same hatred as the Tories did the miners. That is undoubtedly the case and as a result FBU members cannot be expected to shoulder this fight against New Labour and the state on their own.

Several public sector trade union leaders have pledged their support for the FBU claim. Now is the time to put their words into action and organise solidarity action in support of the firefighters. Those like the railway workers' and postal workers' unions that oppose government policies have an obligation to join the FBU action and defeat the government.

Now is also the time for the working class movement to debate the case for an alternative to New Labour. This is purely and simply a business government that deserves no support whatsoever and has to go.

Movement for a Socialist Future
October 18, 2002