London fire brigade strike

well as people say we’d be sat on our arses otherwise wouldnt we 😉

btw surfer we have 5 blokes on the wagon and we leave one on the wagon and the other four go off with radios in two teams and do alarms we dont actually all turn up at one place. if we only have one booked in we go around knocking on doors to try make sure everyone has them.

we are slowly working thru the entire area we cover.

same here. we have output areas where every day we go knocking on doors to see if anyone needs smoke alarms or any advice. thats if we’re not out on calls that is. and we still give out deep fat fryers, fire resistant bedding and strip adaptors. but only to those who we feel arent able to buy them themselves, such as elderly or absolutely skint.

its this work thats cutting the number of house fires down, and giving us less work. pro-active rather than reactive.

so……….a good use of resources? id say so. we do it during our quieter periods instead of ‘snooker and pool’. (our station has no games at all just for the record)

oh, and our brigade is now trialling going out on certain calls with just 3 on a pump (fire engine)! it used to be 6! itll soon be one man turning up with a watering can! :-/

And that’s not even mentioning the ‘michelin star esque’ kitchen at Poole fire station!

😆

itll soon be one man turning up with a watering can! :-/

or one of these.

Fire Brigade motor bike

And that’s not even mentioning the ‘michelin star esque’ kitchen at Poole fire station!

and what exactly has your point got to do with LFB?

Poole fire station really seems to irk you doesn’t it for some reason.

Bazz,

Hope it gets resolved for you soon chap. Don’t let the bast*rds grind you down.

It’s bloody disgraceful that nurses, firefighters, cops, binmen and other essential workers are paid such low wages while certain desk jockeys earn so much. Good luck!

Absolutely.

As the son of a teacher and a nurse you have my absolute support.

Just sick of hearing you lot whinging about how hard your lot is!!

Go spend a night on your feet in A&E, then compare that to fitting smoke alarms!!

Think you might be shocked!

project – Member

“despite other more risky professions being paid less

what are other more dangerous jobs then”

The top 5 dangerous jobs in Britain according to the HSE (and being a firefighter didn’t even make it into the top 50) are:

1. Fisherman
2. Bomb disposal
3. Oil / gas rigger
4. Construction workers and window cleaners
5. Diver

Havn’t the LFA being trying to negotiate changes for years?

I don’t think there will be as much public sympathy this time around compared to the last strike, but thankfully they still have the right to strike. Who will be covering now the army won’t be? Although that would have been a PR disaster for the firemen “Squaddies return from bloody fighting and now covering for striking firemen”

It appears that the basic pay for a private on operations is £25,887

That’s not strictly true. There are additional operational payments which could equals that but ops are 6 months, so a private rank could never earn that amount of money in a year. I would also suggest that it’s [/i]slightly more risky living 24/7 on the front line in an operational theatre of war than fighting fires in london. The A1 (top) qualified private soldiers earn ~£18K, additional pay can be earnt through apecialist quals such as para, diver etc but is not anywhere near the operational top ups.

I agree with backhander. Out of area you are technically working 24/7 and therefore should get increased pay anyway (although i beleive you get added holiday on return) Furthermore, time served promotion seemed to have stopped. On the other hand there are added benefits in kind to official base pay. For example with my wife in the Forces and no married quarters available we pay rent on a normal rental property but at probebly 50% the going rate.

Well I just let you know before and you already have knobbed them off
When the fire brigade was on strike last time They was actually
attending emergencies but without there badges and numbers.
And the press kept sending crates of drink to the stations
hoping they was drinking them.

And no doubt even though they go on strike again they still
will go and attend Emergencies like they had done on there
last strike.

(although i beleive you get added holiday on return)

Correct, but they don’t have “weekends”. On a 6 month tour, you will work every day (and many nights) which the additional leave is supposedly addressing. I bare the FF no ill will, just trying to shed some light.

There will be little public support for this strike, when lots have reduced pay and are losing their jobs this just smacks of selfishness.

Farmer John , Bomb disposal doesnt usually cause a death in the uk, just in foreign countriesz we have illegally gone into, and the BD are usually volunteers.

Old-school, heavily unionised workforce

vs

Old-school, ‘Post Office’ type management

Both need to grow up and work together

So what’s the solution…….a lightly unionised workforce – say about 50% in a trade union ?

Perhaps there is a need on your part to ‘grow up’ and come up with a sensible comment, rather than silly and meaningless sound bites.

The threat by the management to sack the entire workforce of the London Fire Brigade is an industrial relations strategy straight out of the 19th century.

If a trade union was to allow an employer to so blatantly threaten and bully their employees without offering any sort of opposition or resistance, it would be a tragic day for Britain and its long-term industrial relations.

The London FBU’s stand against an aggressive macho bullying employer, has the potential of not just benefiting London firefighters, but also ordinary working people throughout Britain.

.

barnsleymitch – Member

Just to add to this, the meeting I went to last week regarding the closure of the department I work in (NHS rehab / recovery service) was attended by two union representatives (unison and the rcn), both of whom backed up the senior management and hr’s statements without a word in our defence. Basically, I think they were there to instruct us in how far to bend over. A sad day for trade unionism.

Without a ‘word in your defence’ ? What exactly would the point of them speaking in your defence have been
mitch ? …… tell me.

Are you suggesting that senior management might have changed their minds about the closure of your department after hearing an eloquent speech by a union rep ?

No of course not – it would have achieved absolutely nothing. Other than perhaps providing you with a warm glow feeling.

Wake up mitch, trade unions have no power or influence in our society today. Management simply does whatever they want to do, without any regard whatsoever to the opinions of trade unions. The only way they can ever be pressurised to change their minds is by the trade unionists withdrawing their labour.

And thanks to laws which a former British Prime Minister gloated were “the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world”, that is no easy task.

And another thing mitch, the RCN is no more a trade union than the BMA is, despite the fact that the Certification Officer claims they both are. The whole point of the RCN is to provide somewhere for nurses who don’t want to join a trade union. What trade union anywhere in the world has a queen as its patron ffs ? Its there for daft Daily Mail reading nurses who relish the thought of being considered little Florence Nightingales. So crap wages and conditions, and a refusal to take any industrial action, helps to maintain that image of dedication to their “vocation”.

Farmer John , Bomb disposal doesnt usually cause a death in the uk, just in foreign countriesz we have illegally gone into, and the BD are usually volunteers.

Not remotely true, BD are not volunteers. In most cases they are posted to the units. Also, soldiers are not responsible for political decisions.

Penrod Pooch – Member

There will be little public support for this strike, when lots have reduced pay and are losing their jobs this just smacks of selfishness.

Saying, “I’ve had reduced pay and lost my job, so therefore you must too” smacks of selfishness to me.

I guess we must have a different definition of what “selfishness” means.

I guess so

Backhander you don’t work everyday on a six month ops tour I’ve done enough to know first hand.

South Yorks tried sacking the whole brigade but backed down in the end so let’s hope lfb does too

Well, I worked every day on pretty much every op I went on in some way or another. I know first hand, too.

Must have been unlucky then 🙂

In the current climate I think they are mad to strike tbh I’m just glad I’m still in a job, times are changing and so must we. Like it or not .

Sounds about right! 😀

Lol

Strike update:

Firefighters chased the temporary cover, stopped them attending incidents and emptied the water out of the tanks of the fire engines:

BBC News report

Firefighters opt to strike on November 5th:

Telegraph Nov 5th strike

This doesn’t really put the FBU or its members in a good light – they must be believers in all publicity being good publicity, even negative stuff.

stopped them attending incidents and emptied the water out of the tanks of the fire engines:

and where does it say that?

and this it what Asset co did to a fire appliance

Footage has emerged showing a group of people surrounding a fire engine returning to the fire station at Southwark Bridge Road, south London.

from your link
no mention of any of the other claims you make either 🙄

Farmer_John – Member

Strike update:

Firefighters chased the temporary cover, stopped them attending incidents and emptied the water out of the tanks of the fire engines:

BBC News report

And yet the BBC News report which you link to, says no such.

“This doesn’t really put the FBU or its members in a good light”

You mean it doesn’t put you in a very good light……..providing a link which doesn’t back up your allegations.

And on that basis, I now serious doubt your previous allegations concerning the lift and the fire brigade.

It would appear that only the commisoner has stated that appliances were stopped on route to incidents, the police apparently are aware of no problems, and the commisoner has been well, less than honest with the press shall we say from the outset of this dispute, he sounds more and more like a politician everyday. I wouldn’t believe a word he says. Overall public support in London does seem to be quite high, although even as an London fbu member i would say that those pictures are hardly our finest hour, one of the reasons i won’t be picketing, along with the fact that i just don’t agree with striking.
That said i do understand the strength of feeling the way our management has put their side in the press is that they are being quite reasonable and just asking for a small change in hours, the truth is daily threats, stoppages of pay that are almost certainly illegal, breaking health and safety protocols and generally making peoples lives miserable. Such is the depth of ill feeling at the moment that even if the brigade get their 12 hour shifts it could be years until normal service is resumed because for years they have relied on people doing things out of goodwill, and there is definitley none of that left.

Why doesnt the fire service just work normal 8 hour shifts and employ more unemployed people , sorted out unemployment and get a better service its a a winner.

Why doesnt the fire service just work normal 8 hour shifts and employ more unemployed people , sorted out unemployment and get a better service its a a winner.

It would cost more, we are losing jobs at the moment.

Because what they want is to shut stations at night and reduce fire cover, employ fewer people, who won’t work for more than about 10 years and hence won’t claim a pension, erode the watch system so that you won’t know who your working with from one day to another and generally save money at the expense of the service the public get.

and employ more unemployed people

Yeah I think government policy is the complete opposite of that.

That’s what the cuts are all about………..save money by making more people unemployed.

The theory is that the pittance someone gets on the dole, and the loss in tax revenue, is more than made up by the effect it has on forcing down wages and conditions.

The problem at the moment, is that the firefighters apparently don’t want to play by the rules.

And the management of the London Fire Brigade has spent £millions in awarding a contract over a year ago, to a scab firm in anticipation of a strike which they knew they would provoke.

It would appear that cost is no issue when it comes to smashing a trade union and shafting the workers. There’s all the money in the world for that sort of stuff.

Asset Co are on £12 million contract with LFB.

The employees of asset co were on £22 hr a Ff is on £12 hr.

How would you feel if you were told you had to sign a new contract by november or be sacked?

http://www.fbu.org.uk/newspress/pressrelease/2010/10_25.php

The theory is that the pittance someone gets on the dole, and the loss in tax revenue, is more than made up by the effect it has on forcing down wages and conditions.

I should have pointed out that whilst the theory does work very well in terms of forcing down wages and conditions (specially in the private sector), government spending still goes up, as Thatcher discovered when she doubled unemployment.

Thatcher got round that little problem by shifting the tax burden away from the rich and onto poorer people, whilst at the same time convincing them that they were paying less tax. The highest tax burden Britain has ever experienced, was under Thatcher.

I don’t understand strikes…admittedly most of them seem to be led by unions who think they are doing it for the better but end up making it far worse for everyone…personally I just wouldn’t strike – if you don’t want to strike – don’t.

I know very few people who are in dream jobs…I know a lot of folks who are in jobs where they have very little say over their terms and conditions and a lot of them (me included) are on worse conditions than they started on – but in this current climate – a job is a job and if it pays the bills then should we complain?

I do believe in making a stand but from the OP’s first post, he said he doesn’t want to strike…so don’t…

he said he doesn’t want to strike…so don’t…

They had a ballot. And that’s the decision the majority took.

If you want to “do your own thing” I can’t for the life of me, figure out what you’re doing in a union.

Do you understand what the word “union” actually means ?

be fair ernie she also sold the family silver to pay the benefits whilst presenting it as an ideological judgement

Dick that really is a contradictory post.
Unions make it worse – you should check out the working condition in unionised an non unionised industries and countries and see that is just wrong.
If you dont want to strike dont if you want to accept poorer terms then do so just dont expect everyone to be as [delete as applicable] compliant/subserviant/flexible/realistic as you are whilst making your stand.

Good luck Baz. I hope you get a satisfactory resolution swiftly.