FIREFIGHTERS risk their lives every time they are called out. They never know what they are going to have to tackle, and often do not know whether very dangerous materials are present at the site they are being called out to.
However, since 1997 the Labour governments have been taking on the fire service.
On the one hand the government pays tribute to the bravery and heroism of the firefighters, while with the other the Blair-Brown governments have been destroying the firefighters’ hard-won terms and conditions of service, undermining the industry’s final salary pension scheme, and shutting down local control centres, local fire stations, and mothballing their engines and vehicles.
The latest government blow is the change in the pensions regulations carried out in 2006.
This change means that if a brave firefighter gets injured, at the same time as the government publicly pays tribute to his or her bravery, it will privately be sacking the hero or heroine, and telling them to report back when they are 60 when they will get any pension that is due to them.
Injured firefighters, in an industry where danger is never too far away, have up till this change in regulations been found a job that they are able to do or if they are too badly hurt they were retired on full pensions.
Because serious injuries cut short careers, firefighters have paid 11 per cent of their earnings into their pension – more than many other public sector workers.
The FBU and its membership are very angry at the prospect of firefighters who get injured in the course of their duty being sacked without an immediate pension.
They are determined to defend their injured comrades from being thrust into extreme poverty as a reward for their bravery.
The FBU says that it cannot accept a change in rules whereby an injured firefighter, who cannot be redeployed elsewhere, faces being sacked with no immediate pension entitlement.
In Wales, there is a regional campaign to try to force the regional administration to opt out of the new regulation.
Two hundred and ninety four Welsh firefighters were injured on duty in 2005-06, with 28 suffering major injuries.
However, the Labour led Welsh coalition is refusing to opt out of the new regulation.
All UK firefighters are now in the same boat, with the job getting more and more dangerous as the injury and death figures show.
Meanwhile, the normal business of fire service cuts and closures at the expense of firefighters and the safety of the public are continuing.
Currently, Humberside fire crews are warning that cuts and station closures will compromise public and firefighter safety.
Humberside faces the most savage cuts ever proposed in the fire service, with Humberside Fire and Rescue Authority wanting to make budget cuts of £4 million over the next three years.
There are plans to close four fire stations (Sledmere, Waltham, Kirton Lindsey and Hull Central) remove a fire engine at another (Immingham West) and end the immediate response capability of a fire engine at another (Goole).
Local fire crews estimate the cuts will see the loss of one in ten frontline firefighter posts. If the plans go ahead they will have between 100 and 110 fewer frontline firefighters to deal with all the emergency incidents the fire and rescue service needs to respond to.
All over the country, pensions are being slashed, the injured are being victimised, and the fire service is being shredded. It will not be long before the firefighters are taking strike action against the Brown government.
When that happens they must not fight alone. The whole trade union movement must take strike action with them, and work to bring down the Brown government to bring in a workers government that will restore all the cuts and bring in socialism.