Thought I'd start a thread before some of the right wingers start reproducing the propaganda as facts.
Regrettably the firefighters of London have voted in favour of strike action and just to be clear IT IS NOT ABOUT PAY, we have already swallowed a three year pay freeze. The ballot was to strike if the management didn't remove the threat and legal proceedings to sack the entire workforce if they couldn't get a negotiated settlement on their terms. Just so it's clear we know there will be a change to our contracts, we don't necessarily like it but we do accept it, but the way negotiations have been going so far is that our management refuse to budge on what they want knowing that if it drags on long enough (until Nov 26th) then they can legally terminate everyone's contract and then offer us new and worse contracts, so in other words they're not really negotiating, they are stalling. We have stated that this behaviour is unacceptable and that we want a proper negotiated settlement, i.e. give and take on both sides, and that unless they withdraw the legal proceedings then we will withdraw our labour in protest, our union is giving the brigade 24 hours to withdraw the sacking threat before announcing dates.
For what it's worth I don't think a strike is a good idea, I take my job seriously and I really don't want to strike, I believe the people of London will be at serious risk with the inadequate back up service being put into place. However I also don't think that our demands are unreasonable, negotiation should form the basis for the resolution of this and it is not to late for the brigade to scrap the plans to sack everyone and enter into meaningful negotiations, sadly I don't think they will.
