Don't be fooled by the firemen

You will not get any apologetic balance from me. Today's London firemen's strike is the most outrageous bid for money since the Fleet Street print disputes of the 1970s. The system is being milked of money, and the public of sympathy. I admire the firemen's gall and enterprise. They need no sympathy.

The real question in this dispute, to which Monday's Bain Report rightly drew attention, is why, if firemen are on "breadline wages", are 30 men queuing for every job? Why, unlike bus drivers or nurses or teachers, is there no firemen's shortage in London? Why does London not even recruit volunteer firemen like the rest of the country?

The answer is well-known within London's jobs culture. Since the demise of "the print" and the curbing of the Post Office sorting mafia, firefighting has become the dream London job. Since the shift pattern went to two days on and six days off (with two nights on call), it became effectively part-time. There was ample room for the shopkeeper, bookie, cab driver, builder or sports trainer, working in the informal economy.

At some stations, jobs are so valued as to be reserved for sons and nephews. There is no room for blacks or women. The FBU members cheerled for Ken Livingstone during his mayoral campaign. He has thanked them by staying silent throughout the present dispute. Can we imagine a mayor of New York siding with strikers denying his city emergency cover?

Though the pay is not great, these shifts give a qualified fireman in London £21,000 and a senior fireman £31,000. They qualify for retirement on full pay after 30 years. Any objective look into this service, including by Sir George Bain this week, has concluded that the remuneration is not unreasonable.

Sir George said the only justification for an aboveaverage pay rise would be a root-and-branch cutting of restrictive practices. No way, says the FBU.

The London fire brigade is a historical gem. For much of the last century admission was confined to ex-sailors, including fire officers. Fire stations were run like ships, kept sparkling clean, fiercely loyal and resistant to change.

London was still using hand pumps 50 years after the rest of Britain was using steam. When steam was introduced, the firemen slashed the hoses.

The Fire Brigades Union demand for 40 per cent in the face of the Bain Report may seem outrageous. But money is not really the issue. The issue is reform. Were the present shift system to go, 40 per cent is probably fair compensation and cheap at the price, especially if other Spanish practices go too.

A classic is the archaic requirement that a fire station, like a ship, must have the same watch manning at night as during the day or that two engines must go to every call. There are few calls at night, and few firemen are in the station. But the night shift is money.

The London Fire Service is unmanaged. All such "service" ends in tears. Like the Royal Parks Police, the fire brigade is one of those corners of London still a world apart. Its equipment used to be out of date, now just its management. It resists such reforms as flexible rostering, volunteer membership and a unified emergency call-out service.

No one, from the London County Council, to the GLC, to central government, to the Mayor, has had the guts to face it down.

I attach no "blame" to the firemen. Blame lies with those who are supposed to manage them. Any union will exploit such a situation, as have hospital consultants over the years. Industrial relations soon part company with reality and vanish into selfrighteousness.

A workforce has nothing to lose by militancy, since the service they are milking is often no longer their chief source of income.

A new realism is now struggling to tackle the "sickie" culture of the Metropolitan Police and of other branches of the public sector. But the battle is uphill. Bob Crow's Tube workers have shown that militancy pays.

Last year's Tube strikes ended in capitulation by London Underground after a preelection call from a terrified Downing Street. This call sent an excited tremor through every London trade union. Tony Blair was an intervener. He would give in if pushed. The fire strike is the result.

The firemen's leader, Andy Gilchrist, is a friend of Mr Crow and his rail colleague Mick Rix. They are not fools. They have tough members working in close-knit groups with complex incomes. These incomes are rooted not in basic pay but in evolved conditions of service. Mr Gilchrist's militant London members have the most coveted skilled manual jobs in the capital. They want no messing about.

The FBU claims: "We have been left no alternative ... breadline wages ... Government putting public at risk

... legitimate pay claim." This is all negotiating talk. In the past, the firemen have kept quiet because they knew that their conditions of service were worth more than any pay rate. Now there is reform in the air and they are on guard.

They want 40 per cent because that is what they stand to lose. Sir George Bain has offered them a generous deal but with strings, strings that would cost many firemen a fortune. They have preferred to gamble on a strike.

I would not bank on them losing. The management side in this dispute comprises their employer, laughably Mr Livingstone, the local authorities negotiating team, the "fire minister" Nick Raynsford and the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. That broth has too many cooks. Worse, Downing Street's emergency unit is involved, which has never knowingly beaten a powerful lobby. Messrs Gilchrist, Crow and Rix have never known defeat.

I fear for the outcome of this dispute. My advice to every parent is, forget Eton. Put your son down for the London Fire Brigade.