Burning bridges

If you've not heard yet, the London Fire Brigade is taking fireworks night off.

Yep, that's right - the Fire Brigades Union are calling them all out on strike, because of what they clearly consider to be critical and unresolvable differences with the management. After all, if they were resolvable they'd talk first, right?

Well, have a look here

Union position

The union claims firefighters were being threatened with the sack if they do not agree to new shift patterns. FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: "We do not want to take this action but we have no choice. The alternative is to allow London's firefighters to become doormats for their employers to walk on."

Sounds moderately damning - new shift patterns could mean a lot of things, but they don't seem to say what's so terrible about these new patterns. But surely there must be some room here for some debate, negotiation? There must be a reason why they want to change the shifts?

A little further down...

"There are no cuts, no job losses, this is about reducing a 15-hour night shift, adding those hours to the day shift and doing more community safety work and firefighter training."

Ahhhh, now I understand. Your members are paid for a 15 hour nightshift, during which they.....wait for fires?

Let me unleash my inner cynic. The firemen spend most of this 15 hour shift asleep or playing games - and this is what the unions are afraid of their members losing. But wait, further down still:

"The crucial fact being ignored in all of this is that if we can agree a compromise with the FBU on different start and finish times, the whole process ends immediately. Talks have been ongoing for five years, and a compromise from the original proposal of two 12-hour shifts, to an 11-hour day and 13-hour night, with a range of other benefits, are still firmly on the table."

Talks have been going on for 5 years. After FIVE YEARS of talks, with a half-way compromise (with no details on "range of other benefits" it's hard to say more) available the union involved decides to call a strike on the busiest night of the year.

The employers are trying to improve the public safety - more community safety and the like. They've been trying to negotiate this for so long that a child could have been born during this process and grown up enough that you could talk to them about the concept of fire safety.

The union is striking on the day when that same child is most likely to die in a fire.

They need to get a grip.