The Firemen Strike continues

[darth vader]

I heard the Firemen rejected a 16% paydeal recently but I missed the news so i'm intrigued to know why they rejected this one, when they were ready to accept 16% before Christmas (before the government stuck it's two left feet in)

[WendyW]

This 16% is tied to changing working practises ... and they don't want to do that.

[Quizmonster]

The Government is the 'organisation' that has to come up with the dosh, Darth, and they'd made it perfectly plain before December - to the firemen and their employers - that they had no intention of doing so without an end to the absurd conditions the firemen had set down. Duplicate Government feet had nothing whatever to do with it! The employers simply made an offer they had no power to make. Even now, when they have offered much the same thing - this time presumably with Government approval - the FBU is still in the throes of rejecting it!

As Wendy says, they've no intention of giving up the wonderful conditions they now have. Do you know of any other set of workers who have got away - for thirty years - with a ban on overtime? Or any who have so much uncommitted time that they can take on a whole new job in addition to their basic one? I could go on, but I'm sure you know all the other aspects as well as I do.

[darth vader]

The 16% was tied to working practices in the original deal before Christmas, WendyW (and the firemen were ready to accept the offer, until the government stepped in - you can disagree Quizmonster, but that's the way i read it). I can only assume the firemen have changed their stance? Anyway 3 stars all round and thanks

[Quizmonster]

Darth, You'll find a pretty accurate and detailed account of everything that happened on that night in late November when 16% appeared to have been offered by the employers - without the authority to do so, as I said earlier - by clicking It's target=_blank>http://lists.iww.org/pipermail/iww-news/2002-Novem
ber/000655.html

It's perfectly plain that the FBU never had the slightest intention of waiting -even for a couple of weeks - for the Bain Report or of accepting anything it had to say about altering their "Spanish Practices". They seemed to think that they'd been offered the 16% utterly without strings! The situation now is simply not different from what it was then, it's exactly the same..."Give us the dough but forget any plans for us to modernise, mate!" Cheers

[Quizmonster]

Sorry, Darth! That link doesn't work because my word "It's" seems to have attached itself to the URL. If you care to, you can type it in yourself, starting with http and ending with html. Cheers again!

[darth vader]

cheers folks