Fire unioncalling forcalm amidstrike fear

FIRE Brigades’ Union leaders were last night desperately trying to defuse an escalating industrial relations row after a management deadline to return to talks expired.

Firefighters in South Yorkshire have already carried out a series of strikes over proposals to change working arrangements and union officials have a mandate to order more, but instead said they would be “calling for calm.”

Talks have been ongoing between FBU officials and managers at South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue since industrial action was called off on November 4, but broke down on Wednesday.

Service bosses gave the FBU until 5pm yesterday to return to the table, but union officials failed to do so, saying they hadn’t had adequate time to consult with members.

As a result, the service said it would now be abandoning talks with the union completely and instead moving to a two-week period of “individual consultation” with staff.

South Yorkshire FBU spokesman John Gilliver said yesterday that the union wanted to enter into “binding arbitration” with a third party, such as conciliation service Acas, but couldn’t do so until managers began such talks without preconditions.

He added: “Our members are calling for an all-out, full-on strike, this is how angry they are.”

The dispute began more than a year ago when South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said it would be changing shift times from a nine-hour day shift and 15-hour night shift to two equal 12-hour shifts – a move the service said would result save more than 4m and provide more time for community work and training.

However, the FBU rejected the changes, saying the new shifts would hit family life and its 740-strong membership went out on strike seven times in October and November.

According to the brigade, the first three meetings with the FBU led to agreement on shift times of 11-hour days and 13-hour nights along with a one-off 650 payment for each firefighter.

But on December 30, union officials said that deal had been rejected by its members and told management they wanted Acas to make a decision.

They said senior officers had told the FBU they must either agree to the 11 and 13-hour shifts or enter talks with Acas. But the union said the brigade would only accept shift times of 10 hours and 14 hours as the starting point.

South Yorkshire Fire Service said “individual consultation” would begin early next week

A brigade spokesman said: “On December 1 we agreed a fair deal to end this dispute for good. This agreement was reached with the help of third party facilitation by ACAS and the FBU said it would recommend the deal to its members.

“Now, a month later, the FBU has changed its mind and performed a U-turn, and is threatening the public with a strike over that same fair deal. We are happy to go to ACAS for binding arbitration and urge the FBU to agree to this.”