More ‘FBU stalling’ as Fire Authority reviews industrial action savings

The Fire Brigades Union’s attempts to confuse and mislead Essex Fire Authority members in the lead up to this week’s council-tax setting meeting at County Hall have been thwarted by Chairman Anthony Hedley.

Councillor Hedley has stepped in following more unfounded allegations of misrepresentation. The new stream of allegations involves the technicalities of the National Joint Council’s Grey Book terms and conditions relating to consultation. The FBU is continuing with its demands for ECFRS management to call in the NJC Joint Secretaries in a bid to resolve their six-month industrial dispute and their latest tactic is an attempt to galvanise their members to lobby their local fire authority councillors.

However, Councillor Hedley, described the move as another “stall and confuse” tactic in the long-running dispute and urged the FBU to concentrate on the matters at hand.

At the meeting on Wednesday, members will review the impact of the current dispute on the Service and will be told that over the past six months the overtime and acting up bans imposed by the FBU have resulted in savings of some £330,000 while availability has remained largely unchanged at more than 98%.

In an article in the Colchester Gazette, the FBU’s Mick Rodgers appeared to agree that overtime was an expensive way to meet unplanned shortages and implied that he would be happy to accept new ways of working. So far this has not been the case among his union colleagues, with Essex FBU officials standing firm over new crewing arrangements, despite the fact that these new arrangements are now in place at two stations and working well.

Chief Fire Officer David Johnson says he considers it regrettable that the FBU continues to waste its energy and try the patience of its members, ECFRS management and the Fire Authority on an issue that has already happened in Essex and is accepted in more than 70 per cent of other UK fire and rescue services.

He has stressed that he is not prepared to hand over management of ECFRS to a third party and is supported by Senior Management Board colleagues and members of the Fire Authority in his refusal to call in mediators.

“It is so disappointing that once again, the FBU (Essex) seeks to second guess and misrepresent the intentions of EFA paper EFA/002/10 presented to the Policy and Strategy Committee on January 13," he said.

“Members agreed that in situations where matters which are subject to consultation cannot be agreed between the Service and a trade union, the Chairman of EFA, in consultation with lead members, will support the Chief Fire Officer to fulfil his obligation to manage locally. It is clear that this does not preclude subsequent referral to a third party should the CFO consider it appropriate and I am gravely disappointed that the FBU continues to seek to mislead its members and members of the Fire Authority.

“If the FBU was prepared to accept our offer to meet to discuss the dispute, they could have ascertained this fact at that time.

“The fact remains that reference to a third party does, by definition, transfer influence outside the immediate management relationship and in the Service’s opinion any potential referral should consequently be limited to the most complex issues.

“Merely agreeing to refer to the Joint Secretaries whenever there is a dispute removes the concept of consultation and means everything becomes negotiable.

“At no time has the FBU provided any alternative to the matters over which it is in dispute, other than that the Service should change nothing without the FBU’s agreement. Engaging the Joint Secretaries would implicitly require both parties to give ground. The Service has already given numerous assurances around areas of concern for the FBU. If their intention is to give ground under the guidance of the Joint Secretaries why can’t they do that now at a meeting with the dispute team instead?”

Last week, the CFO invited the FBU onto a public platform to discuss the current dispute in an open and honest public debate. The plan was to invite firefighters along to the event so that they could hear at first hand both sides of the argument to establish clarity. For those unable to attend, the event was to have been recorded and distributed to stations. However, the union has responded with a string of conditions and hurdles that will ensure such a public debate never takes place.

“Surely if they have nothing to hide, they would jump at the chance for clear and open public discussion with management,” CFO Johnson added.

ECFRS will be seeking a 2.7per cent council tax increase this year. Fire Authority members will be asked to vote for the increase which will mean that households in Essex will be paying around £1.27 a week for fire services in 2010/11. The cost of providing our services in 2010/11 will be £75.027 million.