Who's lost their engine?

A list of stations that fire engines were taken from before the first strike (23 September) by London Region FBU, to be given to the strike-breaking outfit AssetCo - and still not returned, in spite of the fact that the union and London Fire Brigade are going to arbitration:

Chelsea
Chingford
Croydon
Dagenham
Enfield
Hammersmith
Hayes
Heston
Hillingdon
Holloway
Homerton
Kingston
Lambeth
Leyton
North Kensington
Old Kent Road
Plumstead
Poplar
Shoreditch
Sidcup
Southall
Stratford
Sutton
Tooting
Wembley
West Hampstead
Whitechapel

27 fire engines still in AssetCo hands

Despite the FBU calling off the 5-6 November strike and agreeing to go to a Resolution Advisory Panel (non-binding arbitration) the strike-breaking private company AssetCo still has hold of 27 of London's fire engines. These were taken from stations ahead of the FBU's earlier strikes.

London's firefighters are thus deprived of an important chunk of their equipment and the public must be being placed at risk. Over bonfire/Diwali weekend, the FBU commented:

GIVE US BACK OUR 27 FIRE ENGINES, SAY LONDON FIREFIGHTERS

London firefighters are facing bonfire night 27 fire engines short. The London Fire Brigade have left them in the hands of the private contractor AssetCo which attempted to run London fire services during the FBU strike.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said this afternoon: “Government ministers and the London Fire Brigade abused us for proposing a strike on bonfire night. We cancelled that strike, and now they are withholding 27 fire engines from London firefighters and the people of London. It’s disgraceful and hypocritical.”

On the "I support London's finest firefighters" Facebook page one wag goes by the pseudonym of "Brian Coleman's mum". She says:

Still looking for those 27 engines... they are a more elusive sight than my Brian getting his wallet out.

The FBU blinks

What do you think? I reckon Brian Coleman has cracked open a bottle of champagne this evening. Brian Coleman probably cracks open a bottle of champagne most evenings, but he's probably chosen a rare vintage this evening, perhaps something he's been saving up for a special occasion. The sort of bottle he might have got in a hamper, a special gift from someone like AssetCo.

I heard the news that the FBU has called off its 47-hour strike due to start tomorrow at 10am while I was in a meeting about the recent strike wave in France (!). A friend sent me a text. And I still don't know much more about it than that. I had a lonely journey home feeling dejected, then something to eat and now here I am.

I thought I'd record my initial feelings of deflation, because initial feelings can often be quite instructive. Why am I depressed about it? Because the FBU said they wouldn't negotiate with a gun to their heads, but now, it seems, they have agreed to do just that. Because I suspect the leadership lost their nerve, worried that the ordinary membership weren't up for it. I think they almost certainly were up for it, but will feel less like that in the weeks to come, now they have seen their leadership hesitating.

And what will change in the next few weeks? Will it be possible to ramp up the confidence of members and send the management cowering back into their shells? Well, if that isn't possible now, I only think it's going to be harder in the coming period. The union has blinked, as far as I can tell. Coleman and the London mayor and the Tories and London Fire Brigade will be cock-a-hoop tonight, and so will the weasels - they are only a handful of people, let's be clear - who were crewing the AssetCo engines. And so will John Shannon, AssetCo CEO, who will now make a profit on his contract with LFB. And so will all the egits who think that firefighters - and other public servants - shouldn't have the right to strike. And so will all the journalists who researched and wrote snide little smear stories about firefighters.

Right, perhaps these initial reactions are just a sign of my ultra-leftism (increasing with age and the frustrations that go with it). I'm going off to read up on the web now and see if I'm wrong.

Support London's firefighters tomorrow!

London's firefighters will hold an eight-hour strike tomorrow, Saturday 23rd October, from 10am, in protest at the plan to sack them all if they do not accept new contracts. They are inviting Londoners to visit them at fire stations when they walk out at 10am. A fair number of firefighters will also go on the march against cuts organised by the RMT and the firefighters' own union, the FBU.

The march assembles at 11am at the RMT's head office, Unity House, 39 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD, which is close to Euston and St Pancras stations. Map here. It is marching to a rally at TUC Congress House in Great Russell Street.

Greg Edwards, the FBU rep for Barnet, says:

Please feel free to visit the fire stations. Strike is due to start at 10.00hrs on Saturday and there will be a main picket at Hendon Fire Station where we are expecting an AssetCo run private fire engine to be based.

AssetCo is the private company given a £12 million contract and 27 of our fire engines in order to try and break the strike. The chief executive, John Shannon, wines and dines Brian Coleman and gave him a £350 Harvey Nichols hamper. We are so blessed in Barnet that everyone wants to shower gifts on our councillors - and they never expect anything in return.

A list of the 27 stations where it is expected that AssetCo will be operating, and which will, therefore, have pickets tomorrow is available on the London FBU website.

Government gunning for London's firefighters

This story has been lurking about in the background for a while. Now, in an attempt to impose shift changes, London Fire Authority, which employs London's 5,000 firefighters, has given them 90 days' notice of termination of contract. According to this Morning Star report:

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson wrote to the government and Fire Brigades Union (FBU) leader Matt Wrack to tell them the authority was opening consultation on "terminating the contracts of these staff and offering to re-engage them on new contracts of employment."

...London FBU executive council member Ian Leahair said members will be balloted for action short of strike immediately, with the possibility of a city-wide strike at the end of October if the authority does not rescind its threat.

During the last major firefighters' dispute in 2002-3, the strikers were covered by soldiers using the ageing Green Goddess appliances, which have since been retired.

But this time, Mr Leahair said, the authority planned to call on privateer Assetco - which leases fire engines to the London Fire Brigade - to "roll out the red fire engines" crewed by a "dad's army of retained firefighters and security contractors" given only three weeks' training.

We know who has been dining at the expense of AssetCo, don't we? Our own Brian Coleman, chair and leader of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). Tory Troll blogger Adam Bienkov has drawn together the threads of this story.