Members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in Merseyside are involved in two industrial disputes over terms and conditions. FBU Merseyside secretary Ian Hibbert and chair Lee Hunter spoke to Solidarity about the issues involved.
Q: Can you give an overview of your local disputes?
A: We have two parallel disputes in Merseyside. One, where we have a ballot for industrial action short-of-strike, is over imposed changes to firefighters' terms and conditions. The employer, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (MFRS), has unilaterally altered conditions from the point of entry. This has been done without negotiation with our union, which undermines collective bargaining.
Contractual changes include the addition of types of work that are outside the firefighters' role map, including response to marauding terrorist attacks (MTA), water and flooding incidents, and emergency medical response. There are some other local services, London and Greater Manchester, where firefighters do perform the MTA roles, but the basis for that is nationally negotiated and includes a 2% pensionable uplift on pay. Our position is that, if MFRS wants to include that work locally, it should only be done through national agreement, negotiated at the National Joint Council.
Another issue in the dispute is overtime payment for members employed on contracts, post 2016. It's specified in the Grey Book, the document setting out nationally-negotiated terms and conditions, that firefighters who are still at a live incident when they reach the end of their shift will be paid at an overtime rate of 1.5. MFRS pays firefighters at their flat rate of pay. We've been in dispute over that issue since 2017.
The form of industrial action we've taken so far in the dispute, and which we re-balloted for recently, is a ban on prearranged overtime. That means firefighters won't work additional shifts beyond their contracted hours. It doesn't mean that, if we're working on a live incident, we'll simply down tools and walk off the second our shift ends. That wouldn't be good for our members or the communities we serve.
The other dispute involves fire control members, where we've balloted for strike action. That dispute began last year, when the employer unilaterally reduced the nighttime staffing level from six to five. That contravened a 2012 collective agreement, which specified a minimum staffing level of six. This year, we've added additional issues, around a disputed duty shift system, into this dispute. The way contractual hours are currently organised is unagreed and damaging our members' work/life balance.
The basic issue across both disputes is the employer making unilateral changes to terms and conditions. Although they are legally able to do it, it completely undermines collective bargaining. The Grey Book, the nationally-negotiated set of terms and conditions, is supposed to protect us; our employer feels they can just ignore it.
Q: What's the current status of the disputes?
A: Our most recent industrial action ballots concluded on 21 August, both resulting in overwhelming mandates for action. The fire control ballot returned a 100% yes vote for action, on a 92% turnout, which is indicative of the strength of feeling. We gave the employer a 12 September deadline to reach an agreement with us. On 8 September, they agreed to take part in conciliation, something they'd previously refused to do.
We have made it clear to the employer that we'll keep that process under review. We won't let them drag those talks out indefinitely, or use them to run down the clock on our industrial action mandate. We want a quick agreement, and the employer knows that, if that isn't forthcoming, we will take action.
Q: Your disputes are local, but do they have ramifications for other fire and rescue services elsewhere?
A: To our knowledge, we're currently the only service that's having these kinds of issues with local changes to terms and conditions. But the way MFRS has conducted itself could set an example for other fire and rescue service employers who want to erode staffing levels or terms and conditions. MFRS has claimed that staffing levels are not apt for inclusion in collective agreements, and that therefore they don't have to honour any previous agreements specifying minimum staffing levels. That's an argument other employers who want to do the same thing could use. They've also leaned heavily on the argument that they have a legal right to make these changes, and that collectively negotiated agreements aren't legally binding. Again, that's something we could see other employers who want to pull away from national agreements argue. But of course, just because something is legal that doesn't make it right; we are still going to challenge changes we think are detrimental to our members' conditions. The effect of their insistence on acting unilaterally, simply because they have a legal right to do so, is to remove our ability to challenge them via any means other than industrial action. If proposals for change are made through collective bargaining structures, we can engage via negotiation. But if changes are imposed unilaterally, our only recourse is to take industrial action.
So although no other services are currently in dispute over these types of issues, it is our view that other employers in the sector will be keeping an eye on our dispute and may in the future use a similar approach to imposing changes to terms and conditions locally.
Q: Your disputes are taking place against the backdrop of an ongoing strike wave, which has seen the most significant levels of industrial action since the late 1980s. How much of a factor is that context for you and your members?
A: When the initial phase of the dispute began, the push from our members locally was very much for strikes. A big part of that was down to feeling buoyed by what was happening around us – rail workers were striking, health workers were preparing to ballot, we could see the strength of feeling in the wider working class. It was inspiring to see working people finally fighting back.
At that time we were also involved in a national dispute over pay and conditions, where we were balloting and potentially looking at industrial action. We weren't sure it made sense to launch strikes in our local dispute and then potentially have members strike again as part of a national campaign, so we held back from launching strikes at that stage, which wasn't a universally popular decision locally.
We will need to consider the intersection between our local disputes and a national campaign over pay and conditions again soon, as the national settlement we agreed runs through until April 2024, so there will soon be a renewed campaign over 2024/5 pay. There are also links between the local and the national in that some of the issues we're facing locally, such as the question around what other forms of work can be part of the firefighter role, will also be discussed nationally as part of talks around pay progression. If employers have the ability to simply unilaterally impose that work, for no additional pay, into firefighters' contracts locally, that will undermine those national negotiations.
There are also wider political issues around how the fire service is organised and funded. On 1 November we'll be taking part in a lobby of Parliament and a demonstration in London, where the FBU will launch our Firefighters' Manifesto, which sets out our policies for improving pay and conditions in the sector, as well as increasing funding.
Q: What can others in the labour movement do to support you?
A: The 1 November demonstration is a public event, so other trade unionists are welcome to attend that and bring flags and banners from their own unions. We are also in the process of setting up a strike fund for our local dispute, and we'll welcome donations to that once it's established. In general any messages of support, especially via social media, are greatly appreciated and help spread the message of our dispute.
We've attended demonstrations and activities organised by other FBU regions, including in North Wales and Glasgow, protesting job losses and funding cuts. We also encourage our members to support other unions' disputes locally and attend picket lines. We've also increasingly been getting involved in wider political issues, such as anti-racist protests against far-right agitation about asylum seekers being housed in the Suites Hotel in Knowsley. We also took part in the recent Right to Food march locally. We need to continue the wave of working people standing up for ourselves. The fact that we've had barristers getting involved and taking indefinite strike action shows how significant this moment is.
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