The Forces of Those in Authority Ranged against the Fire-fighters

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Fire-Fighters’ Struggle:
The Forces of Those in Authority Ranged against the Fire-fighters

Preparing the Ground by Focusing on the Secondary and Diversionary

While its refusal to invest in the fire service, including workers pay and conditions, has led to the fire-fighters’ dispute, the government is now attempting to manipulate the dispute to its own advantage. As is now well known, the Fire Brigades Union, which represents 55,000 fire-fighters and Emergency Fire Control Operators, presented a well thought-out and just pay claim in May this year as a coherent substitute for the "modernisation" of cut backs, job losses and disintegration of the fire service. Tony Blair’s has personally intervened on behalf of those in authority, issuing provocative threats that the fire-fighters "cannot win".

To prove his point, since the first strikes in November the government has used all state machinery at its disposal in an attempt to break the strike. Even before Tony Blair’s involvement, the government had been trying to undermine the effectiveness of the FBU action, intimidate and create hostility towards the fire-fighters and break their strike.

Several elements comprise the apparatus of those in authority being used to crush the fire-fighters’ strike. The crude use of the state as an instrument for the suppression of one class by another is too clearly revealed. It makes a mockery of the government’s claim that their interest is in the whole society, and underlines the bitter irony that this is a government which in name stands for the interests of "labour". Anti-union laws, the army, police, and monopoly-controlled media are all being deployed in the government–approved aim of imposing a damaging agenda on the fire service.

The anti-union laws, statutes and practice strengthened by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1984, and enhanced in 1992 have been maintained by New Labour. At their centre is the intention to break workers’ organising power; to render collective self-defence work impossible. Similarly New Labour "partnership" is best characterised as the relationship between master and slave.

With the army as strike-breakers and anti-union laws in place, the government-inspired news management is spreading disinformation. Designed to undermine the Fire Brigades Union, isolate this group of well-organised workers and create animosity towards them, deliberate distortions have not deterred thousands from giving material and vocal support. Picket lines across Britain and northern Ireland have become information centres for putting fire-fighters case to the people. But the unrelenting disinformation campaign continues.

It is an ugly spectacle to see the government using the anti-union laws, police and army, and monopoly controlled media to incite hostility towards fire-fighters.

The government is intent on criminalising the just claim and actions of the fire-fighters. It must not pass. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Will the full Bain Review recommend the imposition of a ban on future strikes by fire-fighters? If so, would the government take its cue and bring in legislation?

The government in conjunction with the prevailing media is preparing the ground for just such a move by placing it in the public consciousness while suggesting that "all options would be kept open", and encouraging speculation whether the Local Government Minister has the same position as the Prime Minister or not. Keep pushing the possibility of banning strikes in public services, while saying, as did Tony Blair, that if you did so "you would probably get into more problems then you solve". Just such methods have been and are being used in preparing public opinion for the militarisation of the fire service, that any agreement with the fire-fighters must be "self-financing", and so on. Just such methods are also being used to prepare the ground for war against Iraq – the line that "we don’t want conflict, but the threat of force is the only thing that Saddam Hussein understands".

So, in the words of the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson: "As he had stated at the time, he had never thought that the right way to deal to deal with the issue was through strike bans. As Mr Raynsford, himself, had said this morning, there were no plans to ban strikes. We would, however, be publishing a White Paper, and would keep all options open as you would expect."

Included in this diversion is whether the government might seek to impose no-strike deals in distinction from banning strikes. While the government brushes this possibility aside at this time, it is happy to promote the debate. What is paramount for it is to extinguish the struggle of the fire-fighters, step by step shift the focus away from the justness of their claim, and impose their whole agenda of "modernisation", "investment with reform" and a "self-financing" pay settlement.

In these circumstances, it remains more crucial than ever that the fire-fighters should keep the initiative in their own hands. The government is running rampant in vilifying the fire-fighters and in pushing its own agenda. Whatever tactics are used by the fire-fighters, the central question is that they must, while upholding their right to decide their own conditions and the future of the fire service, continue to elaborate on what serves their interests and what agenda is in their favour.