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| | Saturday, 26 October, 2002, 18:21 GMT 19:21 UK Firefighters suspend first strikes  Chance of a breakthrough is looking more optimistic Fire Brigade union officials have decided to suspend their first two strikes after holding internal meetings. The move follows "constructive" talks on Friday with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who welcomed the announcement. "I hope that this can now lead to a final settlement of the dispute," he said.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) wants a 40% pay rise to take an experienced firefighter's pay up to �30,000. Officials spent all of Saturday in closed meetings before making the decision to suspend the first strikes. FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist telephoned Mr Prescott to tell him the news. The union then issued a brief statement late on Saturday afternoon saying it had agreed to meet local authority employers on Wednesday and Thursday. "The union has always agreed that this is the correct and proper machinery for dealing with pay," it said. The 19-member executive unanimously agreed that cancelling next week's strikes would give the fresh talks the best chance of achieving a breakthrough.
But the union warned that if no progress was made strikes planned from 6 November onwards would go ahead. The first 48-hour strikes had been due to take place from Tuesday until Thursday, and from next Saturday until the following Monday. There is speculation the government had signalled it would improve a rejected offer of 4% before an independent pay review in December. Early changes Mr Prescott said he had agreed with Sir George Bain that he would bring forward various pay and modernisation elements of his review to aid an end to the strikes. Leaders of local authority employers also welcomed the union's decision and said it gave renewed hope to the chances of settling the dispute. Spokesman John Ransford said: "We are obviously very pleased that they have called off next week's strikes which we always said were unnecessary.
The employers will meet on Monday ahead of the talks later in the week. President of the Fire Chiefs' Association, Jeff Ord, told BBC News 24 he was delighted with the news, for the public's sake. "It could have gone a step further and suspended strike action altogether until the independent review had been published," he said. "Hopefully we can get all the strikes suspended and move forward."
Mr Ord said it was useful to get employers back to the table with the unions but he warned that the review should not be fragmented. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy also welcomed the union's move. He said he hoped "this common sense approach by both sides" could lead to a speedy resolution. Meanwhile, a new poll has suggested that 80% of people oppose strike action and want fire crews to man stations until a pay review reports back in mid-December.
The poll - published in Saturday's Daily Telegraph - follows a BBC News Online survey which found public sympathy for firefighters' plight but widespread opposition to industrial action. The strikes had been planned to last for up to eight days at a time, and were planned to take place over 36 days. In the event of industrial action, the Army - backed by the Royal Navy and RAF - is on standby to provide cover with 827 Green Goddess fire engines. They will be joined by 4,000 part-time firefighters with the Retained Firefighters Union (RFU), who have condemned the FBU's action. RFU spokesman Tristan Ashby said he believed the FBU had got cold feet. He said he thought the FBU realised it did not have the public backing it had anticipated and was also losing the support of its own members. | |
 See also: 25 Oct 02 | UK 24 Oct 02 | Politics 23 Oct 02 | Politics 22 Oct 02 | UK 23 Oct 02 | Scotland 24 Oct 02 | Wales 25 Oct 02 | England Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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