Workers Daily Internet Edition Year 2002 No. 205

Year 2002 No. 205, November 15, 2002	ARCHIVE	HOME	SEARCH	SUBSCRIBE

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Fire-fighters’ Just Struggle

The fire-fighters’ strike to demand that they be paid their worth and in defence of a modern fire-service is just. While the blame for the dispute must be put on the government, which continues high-handedly to declare that the strike is unjustified, dangerous and wrong, the fire-fighters are aware that their own sentiments are of an untarnished and principled character.

The fire-fighters stress their humanity, that they are human beings. They will not be treated otherwise, neither will they act in any other fashion. They will not submit to moral blackmail that they are the ones who are putting lives at risk. The answer is simple. If the government values their services so much, they should immediately grant that the fire-fighters be paid what they themselves are demanding.

The only extraordinary thing about the scenario is that the government should wish to be so confrontational. The answers of the Prime Minister and his spokesman and ministers make it clear that the government would even consider getting the armed forces to go behind the backs of the fire-fighters and take control of the red fire-engines. In other words, the government is not concerned to resolve the dispute but to make sure that its own will prevails come what may. It is not too fanciful to suggest that the government regards the fire-fighters as the "enemy within", as Margaret Thatcher did the miners. This is the clear meaning of the Prime Minister’s reported "Scargillite" comments.

Both the fire-fighters and the government are battling this out in the real world, despite the exhortations of the government that the fire-fighters’ demands are out of the question. It was not considered unreal when Cabinet ministers received their 40% pay rise. But the real world is one in which the government is intensifying the anti-social offensive and its neo-liberal agenda. "Reforms" in this world of the government take no account of what the needs of the people are and what the workers are demanding. They are geared to cutting investments in social programmes and handing funding instead to the monopolies and privateers. The real world of the fire-fighters is indeed one they are struggling to be free of, in unity with all who are fighting for a better world for themselves and society at large.

Any solution to the dispute must be based on the demands of the fire-fighters. They are correct to develop the consciousness of the need to become political in this situation. It is unquestionable that they must and will develop their initiative to achieve their demands. The fire-fighters’ cause is just.

Interview with an East London Firefighter

WDIE interviewed a firefighter, an FBU representative at Stratford, East London, on picket duty on November 14. The interview was conducted amid continuous and loud hooting and expressions of support from the general public both on foot and from motor vehicles. The views well represent the sentiment of the firefighters.

WDIE: Could you tell us something about the background to the dispute?
FBU Rep: It has been going on now the best part of two years. We put in our first pay claim in May. We had no response from that. It’s basically come to a head now after negotiating on our part and we have come to strike action because we feel that we have got absolutely nowhere with it.

WDIE: What kind of support have you been receiving?
FBU Rep: Well, as you can see, excellent support from the public. Superb support. I think the trouble is that there has been misinformation. There has been a lot of misinformation in the press regarding things like we have turned down 16% according to the press. We actually were never offered 16%. They say we have been offered 11%. We have not been offered 11%. We have been offered 4% if we dismantle the fire brigade as we know it, and then we will get another 7% next year. So basically we are putting our views across to the public, we are giving them as much information as we possibly can and we find that they tend to change their minds if they’ve got any problem with it.

WDIE: What do you see as the reason that the employers have not settled the issue yet?
FBU Rep: I think a lot of it is political. I think they see it as their miners’ strike. Mr Blair really summed it up, and I think he really shot himself in the foot when he said in Parliament that if he gives us a decent wage then who is next? He said, is it going to be the nurses? What’s wrong with that? Everybody deserves a decent wage who earns it. We have fallen far behind. For a fireman like myself, I’ve been in the service nine years. I started on £17,000 and am now fully qualified and am on £21,000 a year. We believe we should be on more. We paid for a Labour Research Commission to do an independent review. They came up with a figure of £30,000, so that’s what we are asking for.

WDIE: Can you tell us a bit more about this independent review?
FBU Rep: Yes. That was commissioned last year. It took quite a long time to do, it was quite thorough. We used to be in the upper quartile of manual pay workers, that’s where we used to get our pay claims from. But over the years with the lack of blue collar workers we have obviously fallen so far behind now that what we need is a new pay formula. We paid the Labour Research Commission to do that and they came up with the fact that we should have been professional workers and the average professional workers are paid £30,000 a year so we just took the average. That’s all we are asking for, just the average.

WDIE: What do think of the use of the Green Goddesses?
FBU Rep: Well, the government has known that this was going to happen at least since May. So there has been plenty of time to put some sort of emergency cover in place, yet they’ve done nothing. The next thing is obviously to take the fire engines away, but what people don’t realise is that in London the government does not own the fire engines anymore, they have actually privatised them. They have leased them out to TLG. They would have to ask the Army to fund that instead of just giving us a reasonable wage and letting us do our jobs.

WDIE: What is the union's view about them taking that step?
FBU Rep: They are not happy about it because the army are trained to fight, to go to war and I am pretty sure that if they gave us a load of rifles and said go and fight a war in Iraq we would not be happy about it. We don’t agree with war in Iraq. Why not give us the £2 an hour that we are asking for and then everyone would be happy.

WDIE: In a Channel 4 interview with Gordon Brown at the Labour conference, he was asked if they have enough funds to go to war in Iraq. He said no problem, we have the funds.
FBU Rep: They always seem to find the funds when they want to. You have got people here who do peaceful work, who save lives, and yet they are willing to spend millions on millions, I mean hundreds of millions, on killing people. They don’t seem to worry about innocent people in Iraq.

WDIE: What they are arguing is that if they were to honour this pay claim then it would wreck the economy. What do you think of that?
FBU Rep: If the government did not put any money into it at all, if they basically got it completely from the community charge, it would cost each person 41p a week. That’s all it would cost. Now obviously if the government put some extra money into that it would cost less. Now 41p a week is not a lot on the community charge, if that is the only way they can find the money.

WDIE: You mentioned earlier the issue of other workers, especially public sector workers, those who are facing particularly difficult conditions. How do you view the link between your dispute and the struggle as a whole?
FBU Rep: It is linked. I think a lot of unions are looking at us to see how we get on. Everyone has their individual issues. Ours has been brewing for a long time. Our issue is particular to us, but they are all linked, definitely linked in some way, because if we get a reasonable wage then why not. Why shouldn’t the teachers get a reasonable wage? Why should the nurses not get a reasonable wage? We think they certainly deserve it, so it is up to them to put their pay claims forward obviously, but a lot of it depends on how we get on I think.

WDIE: Do you detect a move to try and divide people?
FBU Rep: Most definitely. We have had a lot of support from Unison, the RMT, NUT, there’s a lot of support and we support them as well. I think it has annoyed a lot of people the hard-line the government has taken. Labour is supposed to be the party of the people. They’ve certainly shown that they are not that and they have dug their heels in for this when they could have easily have had it over and done with months and months ago. It never had to come to this. This is absolutely the last line for us. We never wanted to go on strike; I certainly never wanted to on strike. We are losing money; we are not well paid as it is anyway.

WDIE: So what about the union’s relationship with Labour?
FBU Rep: (Laughs) We actually have a political fund, we pay into Labour, but there is a motion actually going through the London Regional Committee and I believe the Executive Committee as a whole to disassociate ourselves with Labour now. What I think they would like to do is appropriate the funds where we believe they should go, i.e. there are certain MPs that see the argument that we are making, are completely level-headed and sensible about it. We would rather give them the money than blanketly give it to Labour who have done everything they can to provoke this strike. So what on earth should we give the money to them for?

WDIE: One thing is that in the last elections there were a number of independent worker politician candidates, some of them directly from the ranks of the workers, for example the health workers. What do you think about this, is it an alternative that is being considered?
FBU Rep: It is being considered. It has been mentioned in the union meetings. It’s not really from me to say because I am only staff and the rep at this station, but it has been mentioned by people above me and it is being considered. Once this dispute is over – we cannot do it in the middle of the dispute, but it has certainly been mentioned.

WDIE: Thank you for the interview.

Postal Workers Vote for Strike over Cash-Handing Deal

More jobs may be lost at Royal Mail after a deal to outsource cash handling to Securicor was last Wednesday referred to the Competition Commission. Royal Mail will decide soon whether to wait for the outcome of a competition inquiry or activate an alternative plan of cutting down the business.

Royal Mail wants to sell off its cash handling division – which takes money to all post offices for transactions and benefits payments – and which is set to further decline next year when benefits payments begin a two-year shift to credit transfer.

The outsourcing deal, worth £1 billion over ten years to Securicor, was referred to the Competition Commission because of fears over the size of the cash-handling market. There are only two other main players apart from Securicor – Brinks and Securitas. The referral was made by Melanie Johnson, the Competition Minister, in one of the last referrals to be undertaken by a minister.

More than 3,000 people work in Royal Mail’s cash handling operation and hundreds of jobs could be at risk if the organisation opts for a reduction of the business.

Royal Mail workers in the CWU have given notice of a strike over the deal. On Thursday, they rejected the terms for a proposed sale of their division to Securicor. The result of the ballot of the 3,000 members involved showed a massive 95% voting in favour of strike action.

"Our members would have to accept that their livelihoods are put on the line because of a business decision which we consider to be essentially wrong. It is no way to treat employees who put themselves on the line every day carrying out an essential service for the community," General Secretary Billy Hayes said. The union says it cannot tolerate a situation where members are "treated like cheap furniture".

Workers are demanding that services must not be privatised and that their interests and those of the postal service and other social programmes should not be sacrificed at the altar of making businesses competitive in the global market.

Airport Workers to Strike

Fire-fighters and security staff at seven British airports have announced plans for six one-day strikes.

The walk-out by airport fire-fighters, security guards and other workers would affect Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.

The TGWU's national secretary for aviation, Tim Lyle, said: "The strikes will be organised on the basis that each and every airport will strike simultaneously. The airports would not be able to operate on strike days because of the lack of fire cover."

Last month Transport and General Workers Union members voted in favour of a walk-out in "sheer frustration" at the pay offer put forward by their employers, the British Airports Authority.

The union has not revealed how much it is seeking for members, but it says the ball is now firmly in BAA’s court to come up with a better offer. The union said the series of strike dates had not been co-ordinated to disrupt Christmas and New Year holiday travel. It insisted it had given BAA long-term warning to encourage management to return to the negotiating table.

A TGWU spokesman said that the British Airport Authority’s pay offer of 1.7% was "hardly fair". He said, "Given the increasing profits BAA is making, plus heightened security checks, levels of stress and responsibility falling on our staff, we deserve more than that."

Meanwhile the air traffic controllers' union Prospect is expected to ballot its members on industrial action in protest at bonuses paid to two executives.

The proposed airport strike dates are: Thursday, November 28; Monday, December 2; Tuesday, December 10; Sunday, December 15; Monday, December 23; Thursday, January 2.

The airport workers, like other sections of workers, especially those that perform public services, are demanding that they be paid their worth. Increasingly, such workers are linking action in defence of their pay and conditions with fighting for the interests of society as a whole.

Hackney Library Workers Mark One Year of Strike Action

Library staff in Hackney have voted to mark the first anniversary of strike action over the removal of Saturday payments with an extended strike in the library service. November 25 marks one year in which the libraries in Hackney will have been closed every Saturday. On that day a rally, march and public meeting are planned (for details see below).

The strike action of the workers, who are members of Unison, will begin on November 25. It will be combined with a London-wide campaign of industrial action in support of an improved rate of London Weighting for local government workers.

Library staff have been on strike for the past year because their payment for working on Saturdays, which is still in their contracts, was "abolished".

A year into the dispute two meetings between Unison and Hackney Council have been held, but proposals made by Unison were rejected by the Council.

The Council is planning to break the strike by opening three libraries with sessional staff on Saturdays. Unison members regard this as a scab labour operation which will cost the Council at least £90,000, at the same time as a moratorium has been placed on spending by the library service.

Meanwhile the Council has set aside £168,000 saved from not opening libraries on Saturdays.

November 25: Rally, March and Public Meeting:

12 Noon: Rally at Technology and Learning Centre, Reading Lane E8 12.30: March through central Hackney
1.00: Public Meeting at the MOTH Club, Valette Street E8.

Speakers:

Roger Bannister, Unison National Executive;
Jean Geldart, Chair, Unison Local Government Executive,
Geoff Martin, Unison London Region Convenor,
Jane Doolan, Branch Secretary, Islington Unison Brian Debus, Branch Secretary, Hackney Unison

November 20: Lobby of full Council meeting, 6pm at the Town Hall, Mare Street

Over 1,000 postcards addressed to Mayor Jules Pipe to be handed in

Ministers Accused on Top-Up Fees

UNESCO Warns Education Goals Will Be Missed

A Ghetto for the Palestinians, A Disaster for the Israelis

A "Separation Fence" is being built, far away from the media, beneficial only to building contractors who stuff their pockets with millions of dollars, according to Palestinian-Israeli women’s peace organisation Bat Shalom.

"The Evil Fence=Palestinian Ghetto and Israeli Disaster," Bat Shalom say.

The pretexts of "security" and "separation" are being used to lay the foundations of apartheid. Rich agricultural land, including olive groves – what the Palestinians still have left – is being brazenly expropriated. Thousands of Palestinians are being deprived of their remaining property and the source of their livelihood. The owners of hundreds of houses in Beit Sahour have already received warrants for the demolition of their homes because of the wall. Entire villages will be cut off from the rest of the West Bank. Qalqilya – a city of thousands – will become a giant prison camp, an enclave completely surrounded by fences, walls and checkpoints. Life will become even more hellish than it is already – and the impact on all will be direct and immediate.

When the fence is ready, the entire West Bank will become a pressure cooker, where thousands of embittered, desperate Palestinians will be imprisoned, plagued by violent settlers and trigger-happy soldiers. Even if terror attacks stop temporarily, in the long run there will be even more bloodshed, and the situation will become even more gruesome.

The fence is essentially a crude and brutal solution, which will only cultivate the dangerous illusion that Israel can force, with tanks and bulldozers, a distorted and one-sided solution on its neighbours.

There is no substitute for the Green Line as a border of peace between Israel and Palestine. As long as the occupation continues without peace or borders, no wall will help. A border of peace will do away with the need for a wall, Bat Shalom says.

Colombian Communists Are Victims of an Ongoing Genocide

By the Colombian Communist Party

Between 1 March and 20 September 2001, more than 20 people belonging to the Patriotic Union/Communist Party were assassinated, more than nine were massacred in two paramilitary incursions and two were disappeared.

Furthermore, 45 received death threats, there were four attempted assassinations, three were forced into exile and more than 250 families were internally displaced, forced to abandon their homes, their land and their work because of the threats and intimidation on the part of paramilitaries and, in many cases, State forces, even thought they fruitlessly sought guarantees from the latter for the protection of their rights, as well as humanitarian assistance.

From March 2001 to the present day, the number of victims of forced displacement has been increasing at an horrific rate because of an escalation of paramilitary action in different regions of the country. A disproportionate number of these victims have been members of the Patriotic Union/Communist Party.

The human rights crisis in Colombia, already critical before, has exceeded the bounds of human comprehension.

Today, thousands of members of the Patriotic Union/Communist Party, victims of persecution and genocide for 18 years, not only have to live each day with the anxiety that at any moment a hitman’s bullets are going to end their lives, but also have to live in the knowledge that they are considered pariahs of society for the simple fact that they are displaced and forced into the position of having to beg for humanitarian assistance, for their lives to be protected, for their abused human rights to be guaranteed and for conditions to be established for them to return to their places of origin or to resettle somewhere else in a safe and dignified way.

Members of the Patriotic Union/Communist Party have had to leave various parts of the country, abandoning absolutely everything they own, including loved ones, personal belongings and culture, and have had to suffer terrible humiliations in their dealings with the various State bodies that are duty-bound to ensure they have access to the help and protection the Law says they are entitled to. They are obliged to join long queues and endure endless complex procedures just to try and achieve the most basic conditions for survival in their strange environment.

Moreover, in some cases, such as the one that took place on 9 June 2001, in a district of Bogota, more than 300 displaced families, the majority Patriotic Union/Communist Party from different parts of the country, were victims of a sudden storm of violence by the metropolitan police and members of the civil defence force when they forcibly evicted them from an area of waste ground where the displaced families had set up camp a month before because the State had failed to provide them with a dignified place to stay. As a result, 20 people were injured, including a child who was shot in the face, one person was killed and a number of people were detained on charges of terrorism and violent protest.

One of the factors that has most contributed to the persecution of Patriotic Union/Communist Party activists in recent years has been the implementation of Plan Colombia in our country, especially in zones in which they have been carrying out fumigations against alleged illicit cultivations. In the departments of Narino, Putumayo, Caqueta, Cauca, South Bolivar, Magdalena, as well as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria and the Valle del Rio Cimitarra, Magdalena Medio, it works like this: the people oppose the fumigations and even present alternative plans for manual eradication of illicit crops, but the fumigations and military operations go ahead regardless and in their wake comes paramilitary terror.

On 5 August 2001, 20 municipalities in the department of Narino were fumigated by aeroplanes and helicopter gunships, supposedly to eradicate illicit crops, but in reality they destroyed the subsistence crops of the campesinos such as potatoes, broad beans, sugar cane, cabbage, maize and cereals. The fumigations took place against the background of a heavy militarisation, and in this case, as in almost every other, after they had taken place, the paramilitaries appeared to further terrorise the people.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in Valle del Rio Cimitarra in February, and again in August. The fumigation of 30 regions of a number of different municipalities as part of the army’s ‘Operation Bolivar’ left more than 870 hectares of subsistence crops destroyed in February and rendered useless more than 1,800 hectares of subsistence land in August.

Another factor that has aggravated the persecution against Patriotic Union/Communist Party members throughout the country has been the introduction of Law 81, of the Law for Defence and National Security, also known as the Antiterrorist Statute which gives a blank cheque to the army to use all available resources to escalate the armed conflict in the country in direct opposition to the promises of the current government to the international community and the efforts being made to advance the peace process, so extolled by former President Pastrana as his government’s flagship.

This statute worsens the human rights crisis in the country because it gives the military the power to act as judicial police without the presence of officials from the attorney general’s office. It violates the principle of habeas corpus, which is rendered practically obsolete for periods of detention of 36 hours.

It also takes away the administrative and budgetary autonomy of municipal and departmental officials who have to answer to military commanders in those areas denominated ‘theatres of operation’, as well as restricting the freedom of movement of citizens and criminalising social, popular, trade union and political protest, especially in those regions with the highest level of guerrilla presence.

In this way, regions that historically attracted the most popular support for both the Patriotic Union and the Colombian Communist Party, or where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) or the People’s Liberation Army (ELN) are present, or simply regions that are immensely rich in natural resources such as water, minerals and oil, are not only under the watchful eye of the Colombian military, but also of paramilitary groups that are paid by wealthy farmers, landowners and far-right politicians.

In May 2001, there was a shocking attempt to blow up the offices of the weekly Communist Party newspaper, Voz, using an MK-82 torpedo built in North America for purely military purposes. Fortunately the device was discovered before it could be activated. The device contained 250 kg (500 LB) of TNT and was hidden under fruit and vegetables in the back of a red Chevrolet truck, registration CIB-249. Had it exploded it would have destroyed buildings radiating out from Voz’s offices for up to three blocks.

The planting of this bomb was disturbing not only because it was aimed at a leftist publication belonging to the Patriotic Union/Communist Party, a group that has been persecuted for more than 18 years, but also because it was an attack on freedom of expression in our country.

(Translated by the Colombia Peace Association)

Fire-fighters’ Just Struggle

Fire-fighters’ Just Struggle

Interview with an East London Firefighter

Postal Workers Vote for Strike over Cash-Handing Deal

Airport Workers to Strike

Hackney Library Workers Mark One Year of Strike Action

Youth & Students News In Brief

Ministers Accused on Top-Up Fees

UNESCO Warns Education Goals Will Be Missed

International News

A Ghetto for the Palestinians, A Disaster for the Israelis

Colombian Communists Are Victims of an Ongoing Genocide