campaigns against IRMP cuts continue
From Watford to Fife, FBU members continue to campaign against proposals to downsize fire cover.
Hertfordshire
The FBU has once again highlighted the dangers of the proposed cuts to Hertfordshire fire and rescue service, following an incident last week in Watford.
Fire crews attended a flat fire at Crossroads House, The High Street, at 0850 hrs, Friday the 25th November.
The fire in the second floor flat required four fire engines to bring it under control. Two people were sent to hospital, one with serious injuries. Other occupants of the building were advised by crews wearing breathing apparatus sets to remain in the relative safety of their homes while the blaze was extinguished. The crews from Watford’s under-threat fire station led the occupant of the flat to safety and provided first aid until the arrival of the ambulance service.
At a meeting with Watford Borough Council the previous week, deputy chief fire officer, Mark Yates and chair of the Herts fire & rescue service for Herts County Council, David Lloyd, referred to an “over provision of fire cover for the Watford area”. They talked of cutting the second fire engine through the night, which would mean it being unavailable from 9pm to 9am.
Shortage of appliances, firefighters
The Union warned at the same meeting that despite such claims, historical evidence has shown a shortage of firefighters and fire appliances for Hertfordshire. It warned the meeting that the proposed loss of 53 front line posts would not improve community safety.
To highlight FBU concerns, Bushey Fire Station were not able to provide a crew for this fire.
Home Office called for more firefighters, not less!
FBU spokesperson, Derek Macleod says: “Previous inspections of Herts Fire Service have warned of crew shortages, especially within the part time service. The Home Office Inspectorate asked the County Council to recruit more firefighters, both wholetime and part time. They never suggested getting rid of firefighters!
“Part time firefighters provide a valuable service to their community, but they also have to balance a responsibility to their full time employers and their family. At these times they cannot be in two places at once. It is misleading to the public to suggest that all fire engines are available 100% of the time. Evidence does not back this up.”
In October 100 firefighters residents groups, local councillors and Watford Mayor Dorothy Thornhill protested against the cuts to night-time cover with a march through town and in early November hundreds of residents turned up to a meeting with fire chiefs to register their opposition to the plans.
Fife
The Union and FBU members have attacked proposals to close the fire stations in Dunfermline and Rosyth. They fear that moves to replace the two stations with a new one, possibly at Pitreavie, would involve slashing the number of appliances in the area from five to two.
And that, they say, could endanger lives and lead to 60 job losses.
Alex Kinnear, FBU Fife brigade chair, said: “It appears the two stations will be amalgamated into one with a reduction in appliances and, if the changes go through, you could be looking at the loss of 60 firefighters’ jobs.
“Our concern is that you’ll then see increased attendance times to get to places like the West Fife villages.
Response times do matter!
“It will affect our ability to respond and obviously with fires, time does matter. The longer it takes to get there the more at risk people are.”
At present, there are three pumping appliances, an aerial ladder engine and an emergency support unit between the two sites and there are suggestions that just two pumping appliances will be kept.
The proposals are part of the fire service’s Integrated risk management plan but the union fears the changes are more to do with saving cash than improvements.
Mr Kinnear said: “This integrated risk management plan should be about reducing the risk to the public, not about cutting jobs to save money. I’m afraid that’s what is at the back of this.”
Firemaster admits cuts agenda
Fife firemaster Daniel O’Donnell admitted: “There is potential for the number of fire appliances to reduce but it won’t be from five to two as they’ve suggested. Some of that may be absorbed with redeployment but I must stress there will be no compulsory redundancies.”
“The figures we’ve got for the past seven years also looks at two simultaneous incidents and crews out training and we’ll have adequate resources to cover all those contingencies.”
One Dunfermline firefighter, who asked not to be named, disagreed and said any cuts would make it much harder to cover an area which stretched from North Queensferry to Kelty and from Kincardine to Crossgates.
“You may well ask what the point of these cutbacks would be. The only answer I can come up with is saving money, although you and I won’t see any reduction in our council tax as a result.
www.dunfermlinepress.com
W Mids strikes put on hold as members consider new offer
Dates for industrial action have been put on hold in West Midlands while FBU members in the brigade consider a new employers offer. FBU West Midlands brigade committee announced the decision after a meeting last week.
In a statement issued 21 November, the Brigade Committee said it acknowledged the concessions made by the Authority and believed it could form the possible basis of a resolution to the Trade Dispute.
The new offer came about after solid support for the strike across the brigade. Wholetime and retained firefighters took part in the strike.
Strikes on Wednesday 23 November and Saturday 26 November were called off in order that the proposals can be taken back to the membership in the form of a consultative vote to members’ home address.
The Brigade Committee has made it clear that the industrial action has not concluded and the result of the ballot of November 4 2005 remains effective whilst members are consulted upon the proposals.
Solidarity with Notts members fighting co-responding
Nott members are paying a minimum voluntary levy of £5 per week into a Hardship Fund to assist the 34 members at Retford. Send your donation to:
Details of the fund are:
BANK DETAILS: NAT WEST BANK PLC
ACCOUNT NAME: NOTTS HARDSHIP FUND
ACCOUNT NO: 68013868
SORT CODE: 55 – 61 - 17
Control Campaign
Following the decision to launch a wide-ranging ODPM Select Committee Inquiry into the Government’s regional fire controls project, members are asked to give every assistance to FBU officials to help the Union prepare its evidence to put to the ODPM Select Committee. Members are also urged to:
- Keep your MP informed of the issues and any new developments in the campaign (MPs can submit written evidence to the Select Committee)
- Get as many signatures as possible for the petition against the establishment of remote regional fire controls - petitions are on the control care website and are being sent to all members in the next issue of Firefighter magazine
- Attend your branch meetings to ensure you are up to date and to participate in the campaign
- Keep informed of the campaign and obtain campaign materials from www.controlcare.org.uk, the FBU’s official website for the campaign.
Tube safety campaign
Eighteen years after the King’s Cross fire, Britain’s rail unions and the FBU have launched a joint campaign to keep in place essential fire-safety regulations for sub-surface stations that were introduced after the 1987 disaster that claimed 31 lives.
United at national demonstration
RMT, ASLEF and the FBU held a national demonstration at King’s Cross on Saturday November 26 to highlight the threat to public safety posed by plans to abolish the ‘Section 12’ regulations that prescribe safety standards for sub-surface stations all over Britain.
The regulations stipulate minimum safe staffing levels, means of detecting and warning of fires and means of escape and firefighting, as well as standards of fire-resistant construction, training and various other precautions, which are not specified in the Fire Safety Order the government wants to replace them with.
Early Day Motion 549 - Fire Precautions Regulations, has been tabled by John McDonnell and signed by 45 other MPs. Get your MP to sign it – visit www.fbu.org.uk and follow the Lobby Your MP link.
No to Trident replacement!
National Officer John McGhee will be speaking next week alongside other trade unionists, MPs and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at a public campaign meeting in parliament on the issue of the replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system.
A replacement of the will undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty – at a time when the latest US doctrine foresees the use of nuclear weapons once again.
And it will cost the British taxpayer an estimated £25 billion – around 15 times the annual UK fire and rescue service budget.
CND, to which the FBU is affiliated, demands that a full public and Parliamentary debate takes place on the Trident replacement. This must include the option of not replacing Trident and a full Parliamentary vote should determine the matter.
The meeting will be held Tuesday 6th December, 6.30pm – 8.30pm, in Committee Room 10, Houses of Parliament (St Stephens Gate). For more details: campaigns@cnduk.org
T: 020 7700 2393. www.cnduk.org
Stop the slaughter of trade unionists - Stop UK military aid to Colombia
Encourage your MP to sign Justice for Colombia/TUC’s EDM number 355, which calls on the British Government to end their secretive military assistance project in Colombia. This is an issue of life and death for many trade unionists, teachers, community workers, firefighters and predominently poor men, women and children who continue to be murdered in Colombia.
Visit www.fbu.org.uk and follow the ‘Lobby Your MP’ link. For more on the campaign visit:
www.justiceforcolombia.org
Subscribe to the e-bulletin
Get the e-bulletin and other FBU campaign news by email. Go to www.fbu.org.uk, type in your email address on the bottom left hand side of the home page and hit the “Sign Up” button.
Last Modified: 7/04/08 10:50,
