There are obviously plenty of stories in the media about the firefighters strike but you can’t get better than the horse’s mouth and so the FBU site is well worth a regular look and they have a mailing list strike bulletin to keep you informed of their side of the story.
It is a sorry sight to see a former trade unionist like Deputy PM John Prescott in the position he is in now and clearly there are a lot of ordinary Labour Party members who are not at all impressed by the way the government has handled the dispute so far. Personally I think it is time for an across the board public service pay review to deal with the gross income inequalities which exist between the public and private sector.
Mark Seddon the editor of Tribune wrote a good piece in Saturday’s Guardian on what the handling of the strike says about New Labour: “New Labour promised “partnership in power”. Yet the partnership between the unions, which still fund it, and the shrinking and ageing party that watches impotently from the sidelines, has been thrown into stark relief by the threat to break picket lines by force, and by recent policy pronouncements that are antithetical to established Labour principles.”
I have a firefighter in my family and wish him and all his collegues the best of luck with their strike — the firefighters deserve much better than this from a Labour government.
