Page 1 of Only 3 hours into the fire fighters strike, and the first tradgedy... discuss

After only three hours of strike action, fire has claimed its first victim, a pensioner in wales.
Whilst no blame is being attached to either the striking firemen, or the soldiers manning the green goddess, questions and doubts will surely be raised... how long must we wait to get this national problem resolved?

discuss...

TBH whether you or I aportion blame the simple fact remains that there has been a tragic loss of life during an FBU sanctioned strike.This will do exactly the same to the FBU as the concrete bollard on the taxi during the miners strike did to the NUM.By that I mean the public support will rapidly disintegrate and the goodwill that the FBU had been shown so far by the general public will do the same.
Whether the Fire services presence could have saved the poor womans life or not will doubtless be debated and argued about over the next few weeks.However I believe that the family will place the blame at the feet of those that they believe are responsible,that will in all likelihood be laid at the FBU`s feet rightly or wrongly.
JMHO folks:-(

The lady was 76, may have been unable to get out anyway, regardless of the colour of fire engine.

Public sympathy was seriously eroded when a 11% pay increase was turned down, when the bodies start piling up, public sympathy will be nil.

At the end of the day, if you want professional pay, perform professionally now and get back to work and save lives, otherwise look for a career elsewhere. ANY pay increase should be tied to the removal of emergency services` right to strike. Saving lives, not the egos of union leaders should be the number one priority here.

This item was edited on Thursday, 14th November 2002, 02:10

It is a difficult one.

I`m not denying that the firefighters deserve a wage increase, but 40% in one hit? Maybe over a period of 4 - 5 years, fine.

I do have trouble accepting the strike, however. Lives are put at risk, and that is unaccepatble, no matter what the despute is about.

What would happen if one of the people to die was the child of one of the union leaders recommending strike actuon, or one of the firefighters themselves?

Public sympathy will only fall.

In full agreement with Chris Cox, any wage increase should be based on the removal of rights to strike.

Come on lads, back to work, and back to saving lives.

WHY are people fixated on this 11% pay offer - it is not 11%

It is a pay offer of 4% and we only get the other 7 % IF we agree to ALL note ALL the changes laid down in the BAIN review.........

So far we have only seen a `leaked` document making up over 5 pages of changes and they will only give us the 7% if we agree to ALL the changes in the full document!!

How can agree to that when we haven`t even seen all of it ????

SO it is not an 11 % payrise it is 4 % - and if we agree to the changes we end up worse off - LONGER HOURS, COMPLETE CHANGE TO THE SHIFT SYTEM ( at a time when many businesses and industry are trying to copy ours - even the Police want to use it, THROW OUT THE DISCIPLINE REGULATIONS ...... etc etc...... many of the changes HAVE already been implemented ( granted ) - however for someone to have done a `review` of the fire service, it`s a pity he didn`t actually know how the fire service was run AND had he looked into it he would have seen that many of his so called recommendations had already been done - YEARS ago !!!

He supposedly managed to come up with this huge document in 4 weeks ???

Not bad eh, pretty handy being able just to pick bits out of all the previous reviews done on the fire service and the present them as a new document.

Do you think a review of the Police or NHS staff would have been done so quickly ?

I know this slightly contradicts my comment above with the agreeing to implement change - however the ones we are not happy with are unbelievable and unworkable !!

I`m sure many of you would be happy with a so called `11 %` pay offer if you were expected to a complete ( and I mean COMPLETE ) change your way of working, longer hours, dayshift, backshift, nighshift, no discipline regs ( for a uniformed service ?? ), the list goes on and on...

I`d be very wary of casting doubt on WHY we have rejected such a so-called offer BEFORE the full facts are known.

Bear in mind that we would have gotten ( via our existing pay formula in place just now ) a rise in the region of 2.5 - 4 % anyway !!!

So in effect we have been offered ZERO.

But someone has to stand up to this Government and bring to EVERYONE`S attention the fact that Public Sector pay in general is poor ( crap actually ).

If the Govt are trying to stop this strike by bully boy tactics and dirty tricks like the ones so far witnessed because they are scared that it will start a stampede of public sector disputes and pay demands from other public sector workers, then I am a afraid that is a sure sign that ALL PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS ARE UNDERPAID if they weren`t then the Govt wouldn`t be worried.

Someone needs to ask MR `TWO JAGS` PRESCOTT how many public sector workers claim INCOME SUPPORT to help them live !

This is the 21st century after all and we still need to go cap in hand and asking the govt for handouts to survive .........

It was interesting to see the EMPLOYERS use the leaked report as a bargaining tool especially they are HEAVILY CRITICISED throughout, in fact the Firefighters themselves came out very well in the report.

Also it should be noted that this is a PAY DISPUTE which if I remember correctly is normally between an EMPLOYEE and his EMPLOYER ( Local Councils ), it`s just a pity the Govt interfered on a couple of occassions when we were allegedly to be offered 16% .........

It should also be noted that Local Councils only receive funding from Central Govenrment for us to attend FIRES, nothing else JUST FIRES...

NOT ROAD ACCIDENTS, NOT CHEMICAL INCIDENTS, RESCUES FROM HEIGHT, FLOODING, ENTRY TO LOCKFAST PREMISES, ......etc etc ...the list goes on ....

Maybe we should only carry out the tasks we are actually paid for ?

Sorry to digress from the main topic of this thread, it is tragic that such a thing has happened, and EVERY firefighter will have been affected by the tragic events in Cardiff last night........

This item was edited on Thursday, 14th November 2002, 09:18

Who is to say that even if fireman had not been on strike that these people would not have died anyway.
I support the firemen in their strike.
If the government can give themselves a 40% pay rise why the hell shouldn`t firemen get one too.

Well it was obvious that lives were going to be lost, but in truth you can`t blame the firemen, because as the guy above said whose to know they wouldn`t have died anyway??

The problem is people are not going to see it this way - and I suspect the firemen will eventually lose support the longer this dispute goes on.

Slightly off topic.... Don`t know how true, but I heard on the radio that the number of prank calls also went up, and mindless youths went about setting cars alight! Nice to see people are being sensible about it!!!

I`m sure they must have been expecting more prank calls - we all know what some people are like.
On the bbc online news poll only about 33% of people say they support the strike. Okay, not necessary the best indicator as maybe a certain type of people look at that site, but does suggest maybe they are not getting as much public support as they seem to think.

I`m interested; what is the "average" starting wage for a fireperson?

Why the hell can`t we all get a 40% pay rise? I`m gonna need more money to pay taxes to pay for the freakin firemen I never use.

Yes, morons taking advantage of the strike to set fires. I hope terrorists don`t use this OPPORTUNITY (since we love caps in this thread) to wreak havoc.

Ah yes, whos to say they wouldn`t die anyway. Whos to care if they getr paid or not then.