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| pay campaign 2002 | ||
| To: ALL MEMBERS SOUTHERN
REGION From: DEAN MILLS MEMBERS UPDATE: 20th NOVEMBER 2002 Talks continued again today between the Employers and ourselves, albeit by telephone. Tomorrow the employers meet again and I hope they will make us a substantial offer from which negotiations can start for the future. The point is that any offer must be substantial and acceptable. If it is neither of these then it must be rejected by the Executive Council. Andy Gilchrist has said any offer must be substantial and serious. Indeed it must. It must also be an offer which is workable and sustainable for the future and it must not come, as has been said, ‘with ropes not strings attached’. An offer spread over years is not acceptable if it returns little more than we would have received anyway. Any offer linked to modernization must be a modernization agenda on our terms so that the public can benefit. We cannot allow the public to be less well protected under the Governments ill thought out proposals. An offer to us as FBU members must be acceptable to FBU members no matter what their job or work location is. I do not believe we should simply accept today an offer to address today’s issues if it only leads to problems later on for all of us, employees and employers within the Fire Service. We want a settlement to the dispute as none of us want to strike. BUT we also want a settlement which will work and not sell any of our members short. The 48 hour action we were forced to take has had a real effect on our employers and they have moved considerably. In all negotiations I accept all parties have to give and take. No members who have taken strike action or voted to do so wants to be in the position where we and the public have to ‘give’ and the Government and Employers are left to ‘take’. We want a settlement which is fair on pay, protects the public, and is agreed on by the whole membership. Sir Michael Boyce issues strike warning Continuing to force us to strike would seriously undermine any possible military action against Iraq, according to Sir Michael Boyce the Chief of Defence Staff. He was "extremely concerned" by the impact on military effectiveness of having 19,000 troops on stand-by for firefighting. In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to play down the suggestion soldiers could not cope. Sir Michael insisted he would not send troops to strike break by crossing FBU picket lines but would expect the police to carry out that sort of operation.
General Boyce also said there were problems sending soldiers into battle straight from firefighting and straight to firefighting from places like Bosnia. I agree with him. I also agree with the comments today of the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. He said “"I am extremely concerned about the military effectiveness of our armed forces” There is in fact a split among the military on our dispute with some saying it should be resolved quickly and we should get a fair pay adjustment and some saying that the problem is not with our dispute as far as they are concerned but that it is not helpful to them. There is a way in which the entire military resources can be freed up. Settle our dispute. Sir Michael Boyce can ring Sir Eddie George to call his friend Sir George Bain who can consult with Sir Tony Young and Sir Michael Lyons. They can then give advice to the future ‘Sirs’ on the select part of the employers side of the NJC and agree a sensible outcome instead of negotiating through the press to the exclusion of many members of the employers side not in the select group deemed worth talking to. OUTRAGE AT FIRE CHIEFS' PAY RISE £77,000 worth of pay awards shared by the county's chief firefighter Phil Toase and his three assistants in West Yorkshire. The Fire Authority refused to reveal the salary levels to the Yorkshire Evening Post claiming that even though the money comes from the public purse it is "data protected". The cash was shared between Mr Toase, assistant chief Keith Arbuthnot and assistant deputies David Monks and Allan Hughes. Not exactly the greatest timing in the world is it? SIR SIR & SIR who are the three monkeys who see evil, hear it from only selected sources, and speak it in volumes? Professor Sir George Bain has been President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast since January 1998. He has written extensively and one would think that by now he would have learnt to at least try and ensure his thoughts on modernization has a degree of credibility but they do not. He doesn’t even take the most basic of steps by referencing his work. He does though talk about lateral earnings as a way to improve our pay. This horizontal may be acceptable to him as he does get into bed with many other employers who pay for his services in addition to all his other earnings. He misses an important fact however. Firefighters and Control staff have a degree of self respect and do not want to follow his example and earn money horizontally. We would rather not prostitute ourselves. Perhaps the Bank of Ireland and all the other employers of Mr Bain might consider this in future offers of work. Sir Anthony Young was a Governor of the BBC from 1998 to 2002. They have covered our dispute in what many see as a less than fair way. The coach crash on the M25 for example would I am sure been highlighted in much sharper focus had it occurred on a night when we were forced into strike action. Sir Michael Lyons was the Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council from 1994 until 2001, having previously been Chief Executive of Nottinghamshire County Council and Wolverhampton Borough Council. He is Professor of Public Policy at Birmingham University. Sir Michael is also currently Chairman of the English Cities Fund and a Director of several companies, including Central Television. Another media controller. Well now there’s something to consider when we talk about why the media say one thing about us yet the public visiting stations say quite another. And what does Mr Prescott say of the work of the three SIRS? In Parliament last week he said this of Bains work which were, we had been told, the work to settle our dispute which was why we had to await its outcome: “Sir George always made it clear that his Position Paper was not designed to end the strike, but to provide the negotiators with a menu of options for negotiation which would put in place substantial reform in exchange for substantial pay increases” I hardly call a 4% offer a ‘substantial pay increase’ If this were a school report it would undoubtedly say ‘Must Try Much Harder’ and ‘Day Dreamers Who Do Not Seem To Have A Grip On Reality’ Our Ref: AG/sr 19 November 2002 The Rt Hon John Prescott MP Deputy Prime Minister Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 26 Whitehall London SW1A 2WH Dear John Following our discussions on the question of a significant increase in the pay of Firefighters and Emergency Fire Control Staff I am as agreed attaching a position statement on what the FBU believe to be the true modernisation of the Fire Service and a modernisation agenda that would take the Service forward................................... Click here for the full letter and FBUs` Modernisation paper Yours sincerely ANDY GILCHRIST GENERAL SECRETARY Dean Mills
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