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[verulamium] 22/11/2002 13:49

16% plus modernisation would probably save money in the long run. Without modernisation I don't see why they should get more than inflation.

[divina] 22/11/2002 13:46

Government should NOT Give in 4% MAX

if they give in im voting conservative

[verulamium] 22/11/2002 13:44

It makes your blood boil. Some chap who's only just started with the Fire Brigade in Slough, is on BBC1 London news whinging about the pay and not being able to buy his kids Christmas presents.

Why on earth did he take the job? Is the phrase "I'd love the job but the pay's not enough" not in his vocabulary?

Perhaps he couldn't find a job which pays more? In which case, they can't be underpaid.

Presumably if he's been in the job less than 2 years, he's got no employment rights and they can just sack him. He certainly deserves it.

Well done John Prescott on not bothering to get out of bed to read the latest supposed negotiated settlement. It wasn't worth it. 16% over 2 or 3 years conditional on full implementation of the Bain report would be reasonable.

[brainclamp] 22/11/2002 12:47

The press is saying Gilchrist lost because the working practices of the Firemen have been highlighted losing sympathy with the public, and any rise in pay will have to come from job cuts.

Gilchrist has forseen this, and the strike will go ahead over a pay offer of 16% with very watered down changes. I think the prospect of 8 days of strikes with a reduced fire service and stoppages will get the wording of the planned changes to sound good but be very ineffectual.

The strike is about 16% and as few changes as possible. If they push for real changes the stike will go all the way whatever public opinion is.

[snowmann] 22/11/2002 12:24

`Let the service fall apart` ... lol what a load of bull .
Like to explain how the overtime ban is advantageous to the public ?
There is a good point that with present daft hours allowing firemen to work second jobs you wonder if we are getting the fit , focused firemen we pay for ?

There should be regional pay talks in the different areas so the pay reflects the cost of living . London firemen should be payed more than those in Devon for instance .

I suppose they will all be laughing away on thier picket lines with thier begging buckets tomorrow . Wonder how many will care about the needless death which will occur over eight days . No real professional service would risk life in the way the fireman happily do . Nurses being an obvious example .

Public sympathy will drift away even more quickly over the next week .

[sparky999] 22/11/2002 12:14

This will go on for ages.They knew we would NEVER accept a reduction in cover or manpower.


They are pushing for the strike.We are dug in.

[boonyed] 22/11/2002 11:52

Keep watching the news, Prescot will be 'up the road' soon, muttering to himself, as soon as his gaffer,President Tone, gets home off holiday.

Again, Jaxaxe, poke your sarnies.

BOON

P.S. you actually eat cows feet?

[jaxaxe] 22/11/2002 08:54

The boot seems to be firmly on the governments foot now,they wont fund any pay claim by the firemen...Prescot says hes tired of hearing Gilchrist whinging.
..Our bb resident fireworkers-Boneyhead and Sparky must be feeling pretty low this morning.Boneyhead expected to be gormandising on goose and smoked salmon after deluding himself that hed have(wait for it,guffaw,guffaw)32,000 in his yearly wage packet.(See his earlier post)I rather suspect that my generous offer of potted meat sarnies and cow heel may now look very tempting....my offer is still there,as indeed is the offer of a nice capon for Christmas lunch-stuffed with both Boneyhead and Sparkeys P45s.
merry christmas,j.levi.

[spongy2] 22/11/2002 04:14

No i'm spatacus

[isis] 22/11/2002 02:39

I'm Spatacus!

[maxheadroom] 22/11/2002 01:26

Oh, another thing - the Army and RAF fire fighters, unlike their civilian cousins, are not allowed to go to bed whilst on call at night - and they are doing 8 x 12 hours on the trot (already said that, sorry).

[wageslave] 21/11/2002 23:46

No over yet Gippo! Keep tryin'.

[gypsy king] 21/11/2002 23:45

You lost .

END

[custardpie] 21/11/2002 22:32

so the GREEDY sods have now turned down 16% sack the lot of them.Don,t give in blair..

[brainclamp] 21/11/2002 22:14

Yes - you've won and gawd bless ya.

I see no reason why other public sector workers should not have the equivelent working practices to your good self as well.

It will be a scandle if they do not represent thier membership over the quality of thier work practices in relation to the firemen and argue for equality.

[wageslave] 21/11/2002 12:05

Blair has been burned already

However it is resolved, he is the loser in the firefighters' dispute

Kevin Maguire
Wednesday November 20, 2002
The Guardian

The world has turned upside down when a militant seafarer threatens to order troops to cross firefighters' picket lines, prompting warnings from army brigadiers that soldiers do not want to be deployed as strike-breakers.
John Prescott, the only union heavyweight in the cabinet, will have been well aware that by raising the prospect of seizing red engines he was inviting echoes of the general strike. Certainly military commanders, anxious to avoid doing for Labour in 2002 what they did for the Tories in 1926, recognised the danger.

The growing nervousness in No 10 at the course of events should not be underestimated. That a Labour leadership elected to improve public services found themselves unable to provide one of the most vital of those services for 48 hours is bad enough. But there is more. The government is anxious to avoid other unions clambering aboard the Fire Brigades Union bandwagon - and the damage that would do to its reputation in the City for financial caution. And yet the unions remain Labour's biggest single source of party funds and facing down the firefighters would risk tearing the party apart.

This dangerous situation could have been avoided had Tony Blair not been lulled into a false sense of industrial security. Local authority workers ran up their flag during the summer before quickly retreating and, apart from outbursts of industrial action on the railways, relations have been relatively harmonious since 1997. Clear signs from early this year that the firefighters were serious about pressing the strike button were missed and, when the government finally woke up to the threat, it attempted to sideline the problem with a review rather than negotiate a solution.

A government in thrall to newspaper headlines must have believed it was winning the public battle. Its biggest ally in this dispute - Fleet Street - has unleashed wave after wave of incendiary words against Andy Gilchrist and the FBU. Columnists and leader writers in virtually every paper have published thousands of hostile words. The FBU's lone national ally has been the Daily Mirror.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, newspapers have a long tradition of misjudging the mood of their readers and this fire dispute can now be added to that list. The more papers demonised Mr Gilchrist and the firefighters, the more their readers chose to see public servants simply seeking better rewards for doing a dangerous job well. Yesterday's Guardian ICM poll, showing 53% of people supported the firefighters after last week's strike, with 62% critical of the government's handling of the dispute, will have made unhappy reading in Fleet Street as well as Downing Street.

The government's priority is to avoid a second strike and allow both sides to settle with honour which, inevitably, will involve fudged figures and arguments about the value of efficiency savings from "modernisation", formerly know as changes in working practices. After refusing to fund a 16.1% two-year deal floated by local employers in July, the government ordered the review under Sir George Bain. Presented as the key to settling the dispute, Bain has become an obstacle.

The employers have already ditched two central planks of the Bain report: cutting strings imposed on a 4% offer this year and agreeing a new annual pay formula opposed by the review chair. A critical analysis of the Bain report for the FBU by Roger Seifert, a professor of human resources management at Keele university, accuses Bain of muddled thinking. Take the overtime ban, denounced by Bain as a restrictive practice. As Seifert points out, it was the logical outcome of the old pay formula which added any extra earnings to overall earnings, reducing the following year's pay rise.

Bain (male, white) and the government's newspaper cheerleaders (overwhelmingly male, white) have also condemned firefighters for being mainly male and white. Even leaving aside the failure of the employers to recruit women and crew members from minority communities, this is disingenuous. As Seifert points out, Bain's proposed return of overtime in the fire service, a family-unfriendly practice, would only undermine the recruitment of women.

During negotiations over the next few days, as 11% over two years is nudged up, all those involved in the dispute will be looking for a way out. But it will be too late: burning braziers, troops on the streets, double-digit pay demands, threats of secondary action and newspapers raging against trade union leaders have returned to Britain. Tony Blair may still be able to defeat the firefighters but, in a damaging sense, he has already lost this dispute.

kevin.maguire@ guardian.co.uk

[goodcaii] 21/11/2002 12:03

gypsy king
making a thread about you is not enough.......i am going to go out of my way
to locate you....

i want the country to know what a slag you are............not just advfn...

[boonyed] 21/11/2002 10:21

What an excellent outcome, a 16% wage increase plus overtime, the possibility of shift allowance and unsocial hours, that should bring my wage up to about £32,500...........SUPERB!

The changes to working practices were coming next year anyway, the Union and the membership knew that.

As I said in a previous post, there was no way we would get 40%, if we had wanted 5% we wouldn't have started negotiation at 6%, Andy Gilchrist and the FBU officials have played a blinder, they have got exactly what they wanted..............a serious increase in the basic pay of Firefighters prior to any change in working practices.

THANKS ANDY, YOU'VE DONE US PROUD

Jaxaxe....POKE YOUR MEAT PIES AND MANKY SANDWICHES....I'm having smoked salmon, goose and pudding with brandy sauce this Christmas.

BOON

[wageslave] 20/11/2002 23:51

Gipsy you are the one who is beaten. LOL !