removal. .... • • its aim of breaching the 10 percent pay limit. The pay formula insulated firefighters pay from the worst pressures of the following years, and the agreement on hours reduced working hours from a 48 hour week to a 42 hour week.
In a series of defensive battles beginning in the late 1980s the FBU saw off a series of aggressive Chief Officers pursuing a "New Public Sector Management" agenda. The local fire authorities that lined up with the new style Chief Officers were mainly large metropolican authorities under Labour control
As an FBU brigade official in Merseyside I was faced first hand by one of the new breed of Chief Officers and the New Labour wannabes controlling the fire authority. The disputes and grievance procedures were routinely ignored, so disputes could only be resolved by resorting to industrial action. Brigades like Merseyside have a ten year record of resisting Chief Officers and aggressive New Labour fire real wages for firefighters at 15 percent between 1974 and 1977.
In the current dispute firefighters' pay has only begun to fall in recent years, and the decision to abandon the pay formula was a balanced judgement not a clear necessity. The pressure for higher pay is regionalised and comes from younger firefighters in the south who are faced by impossibly high housing costs.
The campaign has not welled up from below but is led from the top by the FBL Executive, Andy Gilchrist in particular. The FBU has little recent history of unofficia action and most disputes have been chan nelled through the FBU at local level.
The local FBU leaderships are only loose ly organised and there is little coordinatior between the most militant sections in vari ous brigades: there is no genuine rank an file organisation at local or national level
In 2002/3 the dispute has the support o the TUC. The significance of TUC suppor is that it indicates a sea change in union rela tions to Labour. The FBU also has the vigor ous support of some of the new trade unio leaders, Bob Crow in particular.
page 21 of the scan
The modernisation agenda pushed by the government has located what could have been a sectional dispute in the mainstream of public sector concerns. Bain and the employers' offensive
The Bain Report is the outcome of a Sir George Bain, Sir Michael Lyons and Sir Anthony Young. nicknamed 'Camelot' by the FBU, were novices in fire service matters. Two academics and an ex-TUC President took three months to draw up the full report and simply brought together in one document an agenda that has been developing in employers circles • • for almost 20 years. The report comments at their surprise at how far the fire service lagged behind what they describe as 'best practice' in the public and private SeCtor.
The modernisation agenda also begins from the idea that savings in the overall fire service budget can only be obtained by reducing the pay and conditions of workers, removing what employers describe as restrictive practices.
These practices, such as a ban on prearranged overtime, are the bedrock of a safe and efficient public service.
The government claim that the FBU stands in the way of a modern fire service is openly contradicted by their own White Paper written in 2001. The White Paper noted that:
"The Fire Service is one of the most consistently high-performing services in local government. The Fire Service has already made considerable progress towards modernisation." Labour and Labourism - the political crisis behind the dispute W ell before the pay claim was set
in place the membership of the FBU passed a resolution calling on the Executive to open up the political fund to organisations other than the "The working class now lacks a party of its own. The search is now on for a replacement." Labour Party. A 'New' Labour was clearly in evidence in the FU's dealings with councillors and in disputes in areas like Merseyside long before New Labour was elected nationally.
The Executive did not act on the resolution passed in 2001 and they campaigned so that the position was reversed at the same conference in 2002 that endorsed the pay campaign.
There is a clear relationship between the pressure on the Executive to break from exclusive links to Labour and the top down militancy of the pay campaign: the pay campaign took the heat off the failure to act on the conference resolution on links to Labour.
In the light of the dispute there is no doubt that the issue will return to conference and that the FBU will review its links with Labour amidst calls for both disaffiliation from Labour and calls for democratisation of the political fund.
After 1977, while many FBU members were disenchanted with Labour, many of the activists in the union became engaged in the fight to strengthen the left inside the Labour Party in the 1980s. In 2003 this option is no longer on offer, as there is no viable Labour left opposition to the Blair government or to New Labour policies within the party.
The structure of New Labour has been
TEAC gradually closed off from union influence at all levels. In short the FBU and the trade union movement no longer have a party to represent their interests in parliament and beyond.
Andy Gilchrist grappled with this point in his presentation to the Socialist Campaign Group. He argued that the unions needed to remove New Labour and replace it with "Real' Labour
The genuineness of these sentiments cannot be doubted - but the lack of support he received following his statement was palpable and little has been heard from him on this topic since. A question of leadership
There is still a real danger that the government is intent on breaking the FBU and that it will insist on pay being linked to a full acceptance of Bain. The government may even use legislation to impose it over the heads of the union leadership.
The FBU dispute raises questions of leadership in a number of distinct but related ways. Primarily the working class now lacks a party of its own. The search is now on for a replacement. This cannot be achieved by a simple declaration of the type that Arthur Scargill made with the formation of the Socialist Labour Party, or that numerous left groups made when they became the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party.
A new party must develop from the organic layers of leadership within the working class. It will require a re-composition of the existing left and a revision and renewal of their politics. A new unity and a new politics can only be achieved by overcoming the historic differences that sepa rate the Labour, Communist and Trotskyist traditions.
I would suggest that such a reformation should take place around the central idea that working class aspirations cannot be met within the political framework of the constitutional monarchy - the working class requires a democratic and republican state.
It will also require a significant break from Gilchrist: unlike 1977-78, the pay current campaign was run from the top down Labour. Such a break will not occur without the maximum unity of the left outside of Labour. Unity of the left is now a central question.
The Socialist Alliance is the best placed . formation to lead this process. It can only do so by raising its game. As it stands the Socialist Alliance is no more than an electoral front, and it is routinely by-passed by its component organisations when they intervene in issues such as the FBU dispute or the anti-war movement.
It is an urgent priority that the Socialist Alliance coordinates itself in fractions within the trades unions and that these fractions act as the core to a broader left grouping. In politics the Socialist Alliance needs to develop as a viable core around which a party could form.
As an urgent priority the Socialist Alliance needs its own press and paper. The Socialist Alliance should commit itself to the aim of forging a new workers party, and engage with as many other left groups as possible to broaden the alliance beyond its present supporters.
The FBU dispute also raises the question of leadership within the trade unions and the relationship of that leadership to politics. The trade union leadership continues to pay for New Labour despite recent reductions in contributions from several major unions. The trade union leadership must now be prepared to break its ties with Labour.
Union members must force the union leadership to make every penny paid out in political contributions conditional on support for the aims and aspirations of union members.
The current crop of "awkward squad" soclalst resistance April 2003 21 trade union leaders remains a very mixed bunch. Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka stand out as principled left leaders who will stand opposed to New Labour.
Andy Gilchrist has not been able to make that break in a clear way during the FBU dispute and this has hindered his leadership, especially following his intervention at the Socialist Campaign Group meeting in Manchester. The role of left leaders will, however, depend on more than their overt political leanings.
f the government impose a settlement
on the FBU, then the FBU will be
forced to fight a rearguard action over many months, perhaps years, which will involve continuing calls for industrial action. In both cases the FBU will need to build an active membership and an effective leadership at all levels of the union.
No matter how good the leadership is, without the support of an effective rank and file its action is likely to fail. The membership will need to develop a capacity for action on the basis of the early shop stewards movement - official if we can, unofficial if we must. The question of rank and file organisation is not separate from the capaci ty of existing left leaders to fight, it is fundamental to their ability to act.
Just as the miners' strike heralded the final breaking up of the last traditional bastion of the industrial strength of Labour, so the FBU strikes herald the end of the old political Labour. It may not happen immedi ately but the die has been cast. The working class now needs a new political party to represent it. Labour has dropped the crown, the question is who can pick it up
page 22 of the scan
22 soc ••• Culture nce April 2003