[A-List] UK labour militancy & public order

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Prime minister turns up the pressure
Blair announces review of joint control rooms

CATHERINE MacLEOD and DEBORAH SUMMERS
The Herald, 28 November 2002

THE prime minister stepped up the pressure on striking firefighters
yesterday by announcing a review of the way joint control rooms have been
operated by the military during the dispute.

As firefighters' leaders and employers prepared for a resumption tomorrow of
talks aimed at ending the dispute, Tony Blair was said to believe that the
centralised control rooms set up jointly by the military, senior fire
officers and the police during the past week have proved highly successful.

However, the Unison trade union summarily rejected any move towards joint
control rooms and warned that they would put lives at risk.

Maggie Dunn, Unison's senior national health officer, said: "The proposals
will turn emergency control rooms into call centres and anyone who has to
deal with a call centre will know just how difficult and frustrating the
experience can be.

"You can't afford to have 'call waiting' while people's lives are at risk.
If they are really keen on saving money, why not go the whole hog and do
what some banks have already done - divert calls to Bombay.

"These jobs are not interchangeable and it is a gross simplification to
suggest that they are."

Ambulance controllers had special skills that often meant the difference
between life and death, while fire controllers had a distinct but equally
vital role, said Unison.

While the Fire Brigades Union and the government battled to win the PR war
yesterday, Gordon Brown restated his refusal to contemplate "inflationary
and unaffordable pay settlements".

In his pre-budget report in the Commons, the chancellor said: "And it is
because we are determined both to have stability and value for money in
reformed public services that - just as in the private sector - public
sector pay rises must be set at a sustainable rate and justified by
productivity.

Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, made clear yesterday that his union
would not talk with ministers about modernising public services while the
fire dispute was on.

He was joined at a firefighters' picket line in London by Billy Hayes,
general secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, who pledged that the
union movement would not allow the Fire Brigades Union to be "crushed".

The strike is set to end at 9am on Saturday and will be followed by two
further eight-day walkouts unless there is a deal.

Behind-the-scenes moves have been made all week to rescue the negotiations,
which collapsed early last Friday just hours before the strike started.

The employers and the union's executive will hold separate meetings today
ahead of the resumed talks.

Mr Prentis said Unison was fully behind the firefighters and had asked all
its branches to give moral and financial support to the FBU.

Unison insisted that lives could be lost if the government pressed ahead
with plans to merge emergency service control rooms.

However, Tony Blair stepped up pressure by announcing a review of the way
joint control rooms have been operated by the military during the dispute.

Fire crews attended 125 calls across the UK yesterday with just one hoax
call - the fewest since the strike began.

There were no major incidents for the military to deal with yesterday in
Scotland.

------

New York firefighters offered £48,500
BILLY BRIGGS
The Herald, 28 November 2002

NEW York City firefighters have been offered a lucrative pay deal that will
increase an experienced worker's pay to more than double that of his UK
counterpart.

The 10% deal offered by the city of New York would allow an experienced
firefighter with 20 years' service to earn a top rate of $76,000 annually -
equivalent to a salary in the UK of nearly £48,500.

UK firefighters earn a maximum of £22,200 after 15 years service.

The tentative agreement will also give rookie firefighters in New York a
starting salary of $41,000, equal to £26,270 in the UK - a new start in
Britain's fire service earns £16,800.

Joseph Miccio, the recording secretary for the Uniformed Firefighters
Association of New York City, said his members are shortly expected to
ratify the deal.

"The deal is complicated and offers increases incrementally but it basically
works out at 10% over a two year period," he said.

However, he added that many New York firefighters were extremely unhappy
with the offer, the first in five years, but are not allowed to take
industrial action.

He said: "We are definitely worth more than what is on offer but if we went
on strike the union leaders would be arrested and employees fined two days
pay for every day of strike action - we are civil service so there are those
restrictions."

The pay structure for firefighters in New York incorporates a base salary
that does not include overtime, holiday pay or longevity payments.

New York firefighters also get extra payments for undertaking emergency
medical work.

The issues of overtime and emergency medical work are a bone of contention
in the current modernisation debate in the UK with the FBU opposed to
incorporating these working practices.

Over half of New York City fire companies undertake emergency medical work.