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Saturday/Sunday September 18-19 2010

Fire crews ready to fight forLondonby Will Stone

FIREFIGHTERS in London voted for industrial action by more than nine to one yesterday against new contracts that threaten to cripple overnight cover.

Ninety-five per cent of the 4,215 FBU members who were balloted voted for a campaign of disruption short of a strike by 4,014 to 201 on a turnout of 76 per cent.

But the dispute is set to escalate further after the union decided to launch another ballot of its members in the coming weeks, this time for strike action, following threats by the London Fire Brigade to sack fire-fighters if they did not agree to the new contracts.

The FBU has argued that the new

contracts, which take three hours from night shifts and move them to daytime shifts, would lead to worse conditions and leave the capital without enough fire cover at night.

Hundreds of FBU members marched through London on Thurs-day to lobby a meeting of the fire au-thority.

Now the union is expected to an-nounce the details of their industrial action that could include a ban on overtime and withdrawal of good-will.

General secretary of FBU Matt Wrack said: “This overwhelming vote demonstrates the strength of feeling among London’s firefighters.

“The LFB sacking notice was in-tended as a means of forcing fire-fighters to agree new shift patterns which pave the way for reducing fire

cover at night.“LFB can ensure there is no in-

dustrial action by returning to nego-tiations and accept that shift pat-terns and conditions of service should be negotiated and agreed not imposed by threatening sackings.”

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson sent a letter to the FBU in August to begin a 90-day consulta-tion period on the contract plans.

He said: “I’m proposing the con-tract changes to benefit Londoners and firefighters without asking for more money or cutting services.

“Assuming that public services do not need to improve year on year is naive, so we must bring this long-running dispute over shift start and finish times to a close and get on with protecting Londoners.”

Mr Dobson described himself as

“disappointed” that the FBU has taken this course of action.

He added: “The proposals, which will still mean firefighters work two days, two nights and have four days off, aim to make Londoners and fire-fighters safer by giving us more time in the day for essential fire preven-tion work and training. I am not ask-ing firefighters to work more hours overall or proposing cuts.”

Tory London Assembly Member Brian Coleman, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority chairman, has said it is essential the National Joint Council secretaries are involved to ensure there is a full opportunity for conciliation before November’s authority meeting where the final decision will be made.

willstone@peoples-press.com

95% vote for action against new shifts which risk lives STOKING THE RESISTANCE: Firefighters march

against the threat to impose new contracts

Antidote to Labour inertia

FEATURES: p11