 |
||
 |
||
| pay campaign 2002 | ||
| To: ALL MEMBERS SOUTHERN
REGION From: DEAN MILLS MEMBERS UPDATE: 7th NOVEMBER 2002 Members within the region, and members of the public, will be shocked to discover the extent to which the Government are provoking a response from Firefighters and control staff. The General Secretary said this afternoon that the FBU had detailed knowledge of the Government’s plans for a substantive and detailed leak of the Bain Review to the Sunday newspapers at 16:30 tomorrow. The General Secretary said: “We understand from two of our own trusted Government sources that the Bain Review will be widely distributed within Whitehall by the end of today or Friday morning at the latest. It has, or is being distributed to Cabinet Ministers and Dr. John Reid, who is in the Cabinet, although he has no Departmental portfolio. We also understand that a Blair advisor named Phil Bassett is ‘working the story up’ in order for the review to be leaked to Sunday newspaper lobby correspondents at a meeting at 4.30 on Friday afternoon. We have been told this leak will be ‘substantive and detailed.’ Members will not only be alarmed at the leak but the intent behind it. Andy Gilchrist went on to say: The intention is to present it to the Sunday newspapers and encourage them into writing pro-Government editorials advising Firefighters to accept the deal as presented to the newspapers by the Government spin machine. The Government and the Fire Service Employers’ have had over 5 months’ to resolve this dispute, but have chosen to leave their offer until the eleventh hour, on Tuesday, using Bain as their excuse. It now transpires that the Bain review is available to them now. There is no reason why they should not have been in talks today, in the run up to, or over the weekend, as necessary if they wish to resolve the dispute before any strike action is taken. The Government and their spin doctors are playing dangerous games. Some of the Downing Street hawks may be deliberately trying to trigger strikes next week; they are going the right way about it. The spin machine is out of control and the politicians need to get hold of it very quickly, unless of course they are colluding in this. We don’t know the nature of Sir George Bain’s involvement, if any, in this, but he should make his position clear as a matter of urgency. He is in danger of becoming the first Professor of Industrial Relations whose work triggers a major national strike. There would be little left of his reputation if that happened. If there is information available for Government spin doctors to give to the press, this information should be given to the Fire Brigades Union by the National Fire Service Employers’ so that this dispute can be resolved before strike action is taken on Wednesday 13th November. If the Government and our employers’ decide to try and spring surprises on us at the last minute it will backfire and we will be facing the second national Fire Service strike in the history of the United Kingdom. The public will never forgive this Government for manipulating the start of this strike.” All Firefighters and Control Staff have expressed their desire time and again to avoid taking action and this may be seen by some as a sign of weakness. We have suspended strike action three times because we are reasonable patient people. We are by no means weak nor divided. It would be extreme folly for our employers or the Government to believe this is the case.
|
||||