Fire bosses blamed for 'botched' pay talks
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Your support makes all the difference.The Government plans to remove the current fire brigade management and set up regional fire authorities as part of its reforms of the service.
The 66 fire authority chairmen are privately being held responsible by both ministers and the Fire Brigades Union for "botching" the current pay talks. Ahead of a pay deal, expected to be offered to firefighters on Tuesday against the background of a threatened 48-hour strike starting the following day, it has emerged that the fire service employers will be the fall guys in the dispute.
The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, is understood to be frustrated by the way in which the pay negotiations have been handled. "They let things go too far," one minister close to Mr Prescott said. "They don't appear to know what they're doing. We're now looking at renewing the structure and it's moving towards getting rid of the employers and setting up regional fire brigades."
The Government is keen to see the strike averted. But it has been made clear that any pay deal that would be funded with public money must be pegged to reforms in the service.
This weekend, ministers are studying an interim report on the fire service by George Bain, which is expected to form the basis of renewed pay talks this week and suggestchanges to working practices.
The FBU has warned that it will call off its strike only if a "substantial" pay offer is made. They too are furious with the employers. An FBU source said: "We are faced with people that didn't have the wit, the imagination or the creative thinking to sort this out before it got to the stage it is now."
Both sides are keen to avert a strike. And the Government is anxious to avoid industrial action in yet another sector. There have already been strike votes by firefighters and security guards at seven of Britain's busiest airports in a dispute over pay.
Meanwhile, there are further planned walkouts by increasingly militant lecturers and support staff at universities. And tomorrow, for the first time in the 800 years of the history of magistrates courts, staff in the West Midlands are to take official strike action.
Striking railway staff are also planning a Christmas shutdown across the northern region, bringing trains to a halt on four of the most important shopping days of the year. The dispute, which affects Arriva Trains Northern services, is already the longest-running strike since the rail system was privatised. RMT conductors say they will continue their campaign until they get a pay rise in line with the 18 per cent given to train drivers in the region. So far they have been offered 4 per cent.
A spokeswoman for Arriva Trains Northern said: "The company urges the union to recognise the futility of its action and the costly and damaging effect the disruption is having on the region and on customers."
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