cloudimani
Acrobat
Its really so hard to know who to believe in this whole affair. I think the position most people are taking seems to be somewhere in between the views of the union and the government.
Really it is going to have to end somehow, and compromise is obviously the way to go. Firefighters are NOT going to get a 40% pay increase, and not all of the Bain recommendations can be put into place without putting lives at risk. It seems that a 16% payrise would be the basis for a deal, but the Government say 14% of this has to come from modernisation, so overtime/jobs cuts seem to be the Labour party line.
Channel 4 news did the sums the other night and showed that first of all, modernisation will cost money to implement, and in the short term, not many savings are likely to be gained from it, and in the medium term not enough to fund the sort of rise the firefighters are after.
But surely we can find some sort of deal here, couldnt the firefighters be trained to use defibrillators, as it has been proven they could save lives. No, we dont want them to replace the ambulance service, but if they cant get there in time the firefighters could still help out. Blair seems to see the retirement of older firefighters as the opportunity to cut some jobs, I'm not an expert on this really, I suppose with reorganisation of shifts it could work.
What the government really need to dois offer the unions some sort of a carrot, a bigger chunk of a government-funded pay increase to pave the way, bundled with appropriate "modernisation" - the new useless buzzword of the day.
It seems ridiculous that the Govt. have set aside ?1billion for a possible war for Iraq. Couldnt we use that money to give our firefighters, nurses and teachers a decent wage instead of fighting a ridiculous and thoroughly pointless war, that no-one except Bush really wants?
Really it is going to have to end somehow, and compromise is obviously the way to go. Firefighters are NOT going to get a 40% pay increase, and not all of the Bain recommendations can be put into place without putting lives at risk. It seems that a 16% payrise would be the basis for a deal, but the Government say 14% of this has to come from modernisation, so overtime/jobs cuts seem to be the Labour party line.
Channel 4 news did the sums the other night and showed that first of all, modernisation will cost money to implement, and in the short term, not many savings are likely to be gained from it, and in the medium term not enough to fund the sort of rise the firefighters are after.
But surely we can find some sort of deal here, couldnt the firefighters be trained to use defibrillators, as it has been proven they could save lives. No, we dont want them to replace the ambulance service, but if they cant get there in time the firefighters could still help out. Blair seems to see the retirement of older firefighters as the opportunity to cut some jobs, I'm not an expert on this really, I suppose with reorganisation of shifts it could work.
What the government really need to dois offer the unions some sort of a carrot, a bigger chunk of a government-funded pay increase to pave the way, bundled with appropriate "modernisation" - the new useless buzzword of the day.
It seems ridiculous that the Govt. have set aside ?1billion for a possible war for Iraq. Couldnt we use that money to give our firefighters, nurses and teachers a decent wage instead of fighting a ridiculous and thoroughly pointless war, that no-one except Bush really wants?