During September our members in Greater Manchester were facing a bleak future.
More than 1,250 firefighters faced the sack – only those who agreed to sign up to worse conditions of service would be re-engaged.
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service has to find savings of more than £14m, but this is no justification for threatening such action.
FBU officials mounted a vigorous campaign that attracted a lot of public and political support. Officials and members all played their part in spreading the word that this was no way to treat a workforce and that the FBU would not accept such a threat.
We were at the Labour Party conference during this time and lobbied for the support of politicians and visitors alike while there.
Unsurprisingly, every single visitor to our stand passed on their support for these members in Greater Manchester, expressing horror that they should be so shoddily treated.
The story caught the attention of national media and I was invited onto Radio 4’s influential Today programme to explain what was so bad about the proposals.
Later that week, we had the welcome news that the dismissal notices had been withdrawn and that both sides were going to the Technical Advisory Panel.
An ill thought out move that would have gone against the grain of any proper joint negotiating process was stopped, but our officials in Greater Manchester are well aware that further battles lie ahead. They will get our full support.
THE REASON FOR OUR LOTTERY
People may assume that, when a firefighter is killed or injured while on duty, his or her family will be taken care of financially.
Sadly, this is often not the case. Those who should be left in peace to grieve are suddenly and wrongly shackled with serious money worries at possibly the worst time of their lives.
Which is why, on 1 October, we launched our very own national lottery – to raise funds for the families of fallen and injured firefighters.
The Firefighters 100 Lottery, so called because it is launching in the run-up to our centenary in 2018, will raise funds not only to help these families but also offer humanitarian assistance to victims of fires and other incidents.
The lottery’s proceeds will also help to fund memorials to fallen firefighters, and be used for research into the wellbeing of firefighters who, we know, suffer higher rates of mental ill health than the rest of the population.
We are proud that our lottery will see a higher percentage of the monies raised going directly towards the good causes it supports than many other lotteries. This is how it should be.
TORIES ARE THE REAL ENEMY
And so Jeremy Corbyn remains leader of the Labour Party, so let’s work towards building a united movement and remember that the real enemy here is this Tory government.
They are freezing public sector pay for the seventh consecutive year, cutting critical, life-saving public services to the bone.
At the same time they are widening the chasm between the vast majority of the population and a privileged few who enjoy a high standard of living, are strangers to the stigma of claiming state benefits and the horrors of zero hours contracts, or year after year without a holiday.
Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to invest in the fire and rescue service and to stop the cuts, promising to give you, our members, the tools to do the job, and end the current state of affairs where response times are increasing, putting lives at risk.
We have campaigned relentlessly over the past six years, warning politicians that the scale of cuts to the fire and rescue service is such that public safety is seriously compromised.
We now have fire authority members also publicly expressing this fear, as the link between an increased response time and rising fire deaths is inextricably linked.
But this government remains deaf to the concerned voices and further cuts are in the pipeline. The question is no longer “How much worse does it have to get?” but “How much worse can it get?”
We tried to get a dialogue going with employers by organising a fringe meeting at this year’s Tory party conference, a first for the FBU.
We had speakers lined up and invitations about to be issued, when the conference organisers told us out of the blue that we had been refused and that our fringe could not go ahead after all.
Would any government interested in the opinions of a group of life-saving professionals have cut off this valuable opportunity to promote dialogue between them and their employers in a time few could deny is one of crisis for the fire and rescue service?
They say they are interested in considering all views before making decisions about important public services. This shows what they really think of us.
