Union fury over Bill to enforce pay deal
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Your support makes all the difference.Trade union members are threatening to force their leaders to withdraw Labour Party funding in protest at the Government's "Thatcherite" new law to impose a pay settlement on firefighters.
John Prescott's decision to bring in an emergency one-clause bill allowing him to enforce the pay deal has been roundly condemned by Labour MPs and trade unionists.
Though the leadership of Britain's biggest trade unions are keen to stress they do not intend to break their historic ties with the Labour Party, they admit relations have been further "soured" by the Deputy Prime Minister's extraordinary actions on Friday.
But ordinary members are expected to be less forgiving. Union sources said some were already threatening to quit the Labour Party. Others were determined to vote against renewing party funding.
Andy Gilchrist, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, meets with his executive council this week to try and find a way through the latest impasse in the pay talks.
His members, however, show no signs of relenting after they rejected the 16 per cent pay deal that he accepted.
Fearing further strike action while British troops are committed in the Gulf, the Government put down its Bill to impose the deal. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said efforts were being made to make it law "as quickly as possible".
But Britain's biggest and most powerful trade unions were furious. Describing Mr Prescott's law as "Thatcherite", a GMB source said: "The closer funding ballots are to this, the more likely it is they will be lost."
A new funding deal between Labour and the unions is off the agenda for now.
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