Who to Blame for the Fire Dispute?

As the fire fighters' latest strike enters its sixth day, public debate is largely concerned with whose fault it all is. The potentially lethal industrial action needs to be justified by both sides, and both sides are struggling to get that justification across.

For the firefighters, much of their justification is based around their history. No strikes since the seventies is impressive, especially given the solidly left-wing nature of the union. Their record on real modernisation - meaning training, skills, equipment, not cost cutting - is equally impressive. Opponents of their pay claim have made much of the lack of women in the brigade, but it is not clear whether this is really due to a male only culture, or due to a lack of female candidates. However, mistakes have been made. Gilchrist is in many ways an old-fashioned trade unionist. The £30,000 demand was seen by the union as both reasonable (placing firefighters on a par with the police) and an initial position to negotiate from. The media's reaction may have surprised the union, but few others. The firefighters' pay claim was quickly referred to only as a 40% increase, their justification of two decades of low pay rises was ignored. The government's near refusal to negotiate surprised everyone. That Gilchrist felt the need to make a public statement that the union would be willing to discuss a 16% rise shows that briefly the union was carrying both sides of the negotiation, and was the only group attempting to end the strikes.

The employers have become little more than irrelevance in the negotiations now. Last Friday's fiasco demonstrates amply the extent to which the government has tied the employers' hands. Indeed, a more conciliatory approach from Prescott's office would probably have ended the current strike before it began. Instead, it is the attitude of the government that needs justification. In their search for a story, the media has in some cases made much of little. Supposed contradictions last Friday between Prescott - money might be found to cover a temporary shortfall - and Brown - no extra funding will be available - disappear on closer inspection. Any extra funding would need to come from the budget Prescott already has. Whether there has ever been a real disagreement between the major cabinet figures is difficult to know. The earlier impression that Prescott might have more conciliatory leanings than Blair or Brown has finally vanished with yesterday's announcement of job cuts being needed to fund pay rises. Instead, it increasingly looks that the disagreement has only been over methods, not the final aim.

The government's methods have been consistently poor. A proposal of 16% over three years was not placed before the unions in July, reportedly because of government funding concerns. (Compare this with the Bain recommendation of 11% over two years, which would have been naturally followed by an automatic rise of 3% or 4% the following year.) Prescott reportedly was negotiating a 16% rise immediately prior to the first strike, until Blair stepped in to block him. A 16% over two years proposal, tied to modernisation, was accepted by both union and employers last Friday, then rejected out of hand by the government because they didn't have time to read it. Reports that it was rejected before Prescott even saw it are worrying - who exactly made the decision to subject the country to an eight day firefighters strike? And why was Prescott not made available? A simple statement from him that the government was willing to accept the proposal in principal, and asking the strike to be withdrawn while the details were examined could have worked, and certainly would have enlisted more public support than the government's actual heavy handed and muddled approach.

That the government is heavy handed is not in itself a problem, rather the problem is that they are inappropriately heavy handed. Blair promised to order troops to cross picket lines to seize the red fire engines. Presumably he saw the PR benefits of firefighters being seen attempting to stop troops using equipment that would allow them to fight fires more effectively. Instead, the firefighters said they would not stop troops using equipment, and everyone else said there was no point, as the troops couldn't use the equipment even if they had it. The PR stunt was quietly dropped. The question remains, why aren't the troops trained to use the red engines? This strike has not appeared from no where. Troops could have been trained last spring, possibly under the justification of preparation for terrorist attacks on Britain. Similarly, a negotiating position should have been agreed before either speaking publicly or approaching the union. Watching Prescott over-ruling the employers, Blair over-rule Prescott has not exactly helped the government's credibility.

At the heart of the government's position is the mantra of modernisation. Tony Blair helpfully defined what this means in this case - mixed part and full time crews, joint control rooms with other services, changed shift patterns, paramedic training and voluptuary overtime. Some of these, such as mixed part and full time crews, already exist, others are simply impractical or expensive, such as joint control rooms or overtime. Paramedic training, at first glance, seems difficult to object to, but do firefighters have time for full paramedic training? And where does this leave the ambulance service, if firemen can do the same job? More importantly, where does any of this save money? Firefighters do not work a long working week - in fact a fairly normal 42 hours. Any savings can only be found by job cuts, a fact confirmed by John Prescott yesterday. Does anyone really feel safer with up to 11,000 fewer firefighters working?

The fire brigade has already modernised where it counts. Firefighters are better trained, better equipped, and more efficient now than they have ever been. The union is entitled to expect that the modernisation undertaken over the last two decades should be taken into account in current negotiations. The government may worry that a victory, however small, for the firefighters will bring a rash of other public sector pay claims. In truth, public sector pay is so poor that these claims will arrive anyway. Nurses, teachers, and many others are tired of waiting, tired of seeing money going to bureaucrats and pointless initiatives, rather than their own wages. The firefighters dispute may be the most dramatic labour dispute the current government has faced, but it is not the first, and will not be the last. Eventually, public sector pay must be increased to more reasonable levels. This cannot all be paid for by job cuts, and other modernisation trickery. Instead, proper funding of public services will mean tax rises. I, for one, would rather pay £20 extra a year in return for a properly funded fire brigade. I suspect and hope that I am not alone.

Graham Robinson. 27th November 2002.

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