Anger at Blair getting hotter

Firefighters' conference

Kevin ovenden reports from Bridlington "WE ARE now entering the fourth year of a Labour government. "As a member of the Labour Party and a trade unionist, I am bitterly disappointed. Their priorities are not our priorities. We are a rich country. We do not need to see people sleeping in the streets or fat cats shifting production from one plant to another to cut costs."

That is how the incoming president of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Mick Harper, opened its annual conference in Bridlington last week. Not one of the dozens of FBU members who spoke over the next three days offered so much as a word of defence of New Labour. People who argued only a year ago that the government was doing some good things now felt thoroughly betrayed.

The FBU conference underlined the mood of bitterness which has characterised every union conference from the National Union of Teachers to the MSF technical union. The outrage against New Labour was at its sharpest over the way it has opened the door to racist Tory scaremongering against asylum seekers.

Mick Harper was cheered when he said, "We certainly do not need a Labour home secretary sneaking around the ports of Britain harassing people who come to this country fleeing poverty and persecution.

"Mr Straw, do you not understand the message that sends to the British National Party? It appears to endorse their ideas." The mood for unity against the bosses' attempts at divide and rule ran through the conference. So did the sense that fire chiefs, the government, and councils, mainly New Labour, are grinding away at firefighters' conditions and the service itself.

Tony Harris from Lancashire told of how a new recruit, Karl Burton, was sacked after he was injured during training. FBU members went on emergency calls only when Karl was sacked last week. The conference unanimously backed a call for a strike ballot over the sacking. FBU national leaders supported moves for a strike but got the unofficial action called off until a ballot takes place.

That decision reflected the debate which is running through the FBU and other unions. Almost everyone feels Blair is governing for big business and not for workers. The question is what the unions can do about it.

Leaders face two ways

AT THE conference FBU leaders clearly indicated that they felt shut out by New Labour. But they pushed through a new policy that moves away from confronting the government and the employers. Outgoing FBU general secretary Ken Cameron argued for the union to accept a government report into the way national negotiations take place. The report puts in place "binding arbitration" for resolving local and national disputes. Many speakers attacked this approach in an intense debate. But most were also unconfident that the firefighters would be able to take on the employers and the government if they rejected it. Retired firefighter Ronnie Robertson from Strathclyde told Socialist Worker,

"There is still pessimism from all the defeats of the past even though the union has had some victories over the last few years. That's why people voted for the biggest stitch-up I have seen in this union for 27 years. There is an alternative. We could build on the local successes we have had and meet any national attack with national action." There was a strong feeling that the left in the FBU needs to organise, and not only over building solidarity between different brigades.

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