THE News Line salutes the London FBU membership which has stood firm in its defence of terms and conditions against a pre-planned massive onslaught by the employers, the government, the bourgeois press and the AssetCo scabs to enforce the submit-or-be-sacked diktat.
FBU members have stood up against intimidation by the capitalist state with its police and its dogs.
In the course of their strike action they have faced physical attack from the AssetCo scabs.
Barely a word of these attacks has emerged in the bourgeois press. Instead, they have concentrated on non-existent ‘intimidation’ by pickets, ignoring the fact that three pickets were mown down by speeding vehicles during last Monday’s strike.
There can be absolutely no doubting the resolve and determination of firefighters to stand up and fight for their rights and to refuse to bend the knee to the employer and the government.
This stand by London firefighters was winning support from FBU members throughout the country, with regions like Scotland and Yorkshire declaring their intention to travel down to London on Friday to stand in solidarity with their comrades.
This determination and resolve of FBU members has not been matched by their leadership which called off the 47-hour strike due to start on November 5th.
According to FBU general secretary, Matt Wrack, the leadership ‘listened to the concerns about public safety’ in making this decision.
Concerns about public safety should actually lead to a stepping up of the struggle, since a savagely cut and privatised fire service (AssetCo already own the engines) will not be able to protect the lives of eight million Londoners.
Not only has the strike been called off but the FBU leadership have also agreed to attend an ‘independent’ advisory panel, which will make recommendations on settling the dispute.
When they called a strike on bonfire night, did the FBU leadership really think that the capitalist press, the Brigade, the coalition government and every other reactionary element would not immediately launch a huge witch-hunt against the union and that they would be required to stand as firm as their members in the face of these attacks, and indeed step up the strike action.
Instead, they have thrown in the towel at the first whiff of gunfire.
The government, having now got the measure of these leaders, will be pushing forward with the implementation of changes to agreed terms and conditions. They will also be considering imposing even more savage cuts.
What is absolutely clear is that the FBU is not alone, and that along with every other worker in the public sector, it faces a very serious situation of ‘submit or be sacked’ that requires a serious response from the trade unions.
The only serious response that can be given by the FBU and other unions is not just 47-hour or one-day stoppages but all-out indefinite strike action nationally to defeat the employers and the coalition government that directs them.
This means organising a public sector alliance that will take on this rotten coalition government in a general strike, bring it down, and replace it with a workers government and socialism.
What the FBU and the trade unions as a whole require is a new leadership to lead this struggle, not run away from it.
