Late plea to halt firefighters' strike
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Your support makes all the difference.Employers today made a last-minute appeal to firefighters' leaders to postpone the threat of strikes in a dispute over pay even though industrial action now looks virtually certain to go ahead.
Local government officials said they were "incredulous" that the Fire Brigades Union was set to call strikes rather than wait for the outcome of a review into the fire service, which is due to report in December.
The employers said that if the FBU's near-40% pay demand was repeated across the public sector, the basic rate of income tax would have to rise by 20%, or 3.9p in the pound.
"Employers do not believe that the UK taxpayer would accept such an increase particularly at a time when the public is concerned that any additional government funding for public services should not be swallowed up in over-inflated wage demands made by the most vocal unions in the sector," officials said in a statement.
The union is tomorrow expected to set a series of strike dates after announcing the result of a ballot of its 50,000 members.
The employers today submitted its evidence to the review, including recommendations on modernising the service such as simplifying the rank structure and introducing more flexible shift systems.
They also called for better working arrangements with local communities and agencies such as social services to reduce the risk to life of fires.
The fire service needed to better reflect the communities it served, the employers said, complaining that 99% of firefighters were male and 98.5% were white.
Countering union claims that the fire service has already been modernised, the employers said that working practices had been "remarkably unchanged" for the last 25-30 years.
"The prevailing culture is one that resists change that in any way involves switching resources to an overall improved effect," said the submission.
The union was accused of opposing the removal of restrictive practices that were making modernisation "difficult, if not impossible".
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