Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, explains why the union is preparing for the next general election
Firefighters and other workers across the UK face a political watershed within the next 18 months. There has to be a general election by January 2025.
Some speculate that it might be called this autumn. Others suggest within a year. Whenever it comes, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) needs to prepare.
The FBU cannot avoid politics. Firefighters may have contempt for some politicians at Westminster, but we know there is no escape from politics. Our industry is funded with public money. Centrally and locally raised taxation provides the bulk of the income that funds the fire and rescue service and pays our members’ wages.
Our service is also governed by politicians. That means we have to engage with ministers, councillors, civil servants and others involved in the political process.
We have to accept the old adage: “You might not be interested in politics, but politics is always interested in you”.
The wages we get, the taxes we pay and the public services we use – all depend on politics and depend on decisions made in Westminster.
First, this means the FBU has to campaign. The union has to take up our own issues and find allies – primarily other workers, from the organised labour movement and in working class communities. It means we have to campaign together and to fight wider battles.
The union has to turn outwards in everything it does if we are to win the things our members want
We must set our own goals and take our own action, but we need the solidarity of our movement and we need to give our solidarity when people like us are involved in a fight. The union has to turn outwards in everything it does if we are to win the things our members want.
Second, the FBU needs a voice in politics. Our members and officials have to lobby ministers, attend meetings, to demand, protest and agitate with politicians.
We have to be heard by governments, parliaments and representatives, wherever they sit. Without a political voice, we will not be heard. With the right political voice, we can get our message across and find allies who will put our message at the highest level.
Of course our members have a wide range of views and will make their own minds up about how to vote. But even when we disagree on these matters, I hope every member will agree that the FBU has to do politics and firefighters have to have a political voice.
We should remind ourselves of the record of this Tory government and its predecessors over the last 13 years, so we’re clear about the main threat ahead.
It was the Westminster coalition government under David Cameron who imposed austerity in 2010, making the largest cuts ever seen in the history of our fire and rescue service. It was the coalition government that slashed central funding by more than 30%, leading to the loss of one in five firefighter jobs over the past decade.
It was the Westminster government from 2010 that imposed two years of pay freezes and six years of a 1% pay cap, which are largely responsible for the losses our members have faced over the last decade.
It was the Westminster government that attacked our pensions, imposed higher contributions, and pushed up the normal pension age.
It was the Westminster government in 2012-13 that tried to privatise the fire and rescue service through the back door of the Regulatory Reform Committee and so-called mutualisation.
It was the Westminster Tory government in 2015 that imposed the Trade Union Act, further adding to the raft of anti-union legislation we face when we want to take lawful industrial action.
It is this current Tory Westminster government that is imposing the Minimum Service Levels Bill, which could effectively ban strikes in our sector, taking away our legal right to defend and improve our conditions.
We need a fresh start and government that puts working people at the heart of every decision it makes
It was the Westminster Tory government that allowed police and crime commissioners to take over the running of fire authorities.
It is this current Tory Westminster government that issued its White Paper on Fire Reform, designed to take away our collective bargaining rights and give chief fire officers the monopoly of power to dictate our members’ contracts and role.
The current government is on life-support, desperately clinging to power, but with no answers to the basic questions facing working people.
We need a general election – the sooner the better. We need a fresh start and government that puts working people at the heart of every decision it makes.
