‘CUTS will cost lives,’ Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary Matt Wrack insisted yesterday.
He was addressing a 500-strong rally in Westminster of FBU delegations from across the UK before a lobby of MPs to demand they stop savage fire service cuts going ahead.
He added: ‘A significant factor in the reduction of fire death has been the work of our members.
‘It’s our people at all levels who have taken the fire service forward.
‘The truth is the fire service is a labour intensive service.’
He warned that the planned budget cuts mean ‘getting rid of stations, fire engines and hundreds then thousands of firefighters.
‘It will take longer to get to emergencies and people will be put at risk, our members will be put at risk.’
He added: ‘We’re here to defend our fire service.’
He said privatisation of engines and equipment in London ‘was a disaster’ and warned that ‘there are 4,000 firefighters jobs at risk’.
He said firefighters have suffered a pay freeze and their pensions are under attack.
He concluded: ‘We need to make our case. We need to be shouting from the rooftops every time we face cuts.
‘We need more events like this. We also need to be part of a much wider movement.
‘The crisis was caused by people gambling with billions of pounds on the financial markets.
‘Bankers bonuses last year were back to £13bn, the idea that there is no money to fund the fire service is nonsense’.
Civil servants union PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told the rally: ‘Unless we see the cuts you face along with the cuts we are all facing we are not going to find a solution.
‘The trade unions need to do much more united action to defend jobs in the public sector.
‘Cuts cost lives – cutting 6,000 firefighters jobs, and in London alone cutting 17 fire stations is disgraceful.’
He warned: ‘This government is making more cuts in the welfare budget than has ever been seen.
‘Disabled people are being told they are fit for work and are dying.’
He stressed: ‘We should oppose all cuts.
‘If we don’t we’ll be having to choose whether a job in the fire service is worth a job in the NHS.
‘We’d be on the road to disaster.
‘We need now to fight back. We have to stand together.
‘We need to carry forward the argument with unions standing together either in strike action or joint campaigns.’
He concluded: ‘It’s a battle the TUC should be prepared to lead.
‘I have to leave now to go back to a meeting of my national executive committee which I expect to decide on a further national strike ballot of a quarter of a million civil servants in defence of our pensions.’
West Yorkshire FBU official Dave Williams said: ‘Last year we saw the worst ever cuts in our history.
‘Stations were closed, seven pumps were axed that there were 20 redundancies.
‘We’re not going to lose. this year we face cuts of 12 more engines and a further 20 posts.
‘Over the next few years we could see the loss of one in five operational staff.
‘We will not stand by and watch them decimate our fire service in West Yorkshire.’
Other speakers were Labour MPs Kate Hoey and John McDonnell.
FBU members and reps leaving the meeting to lobby MPs stressed to News Line there will have to be industrial action.
