A dispute by Essex firefighters which has been running for nearly two years has saved the service more than £2million.Whoops!
Members of the Fire Brigades Union are refusing to work overtime or to “act up” – filling in when more senior officers are off.So they saved the bosses tons of money AND failed to resolve anything? Double whoops!
Fire chief David Johnson says the dispute is irrelevant as the changes which triggered it have have been successfully introduced.
He warns overtime and acting up payments could now be lost for good in view of the savings that have been made.Treble whoops!
“During the course of this industrial action, the service has saved £2.2million, with negligible impact on our frontline service.If they don’t, they must be utterly negligent. This is, after all, a dispute and a catastrophe entirely of the union’s own making:
“With such a significant saving to our running costs and the current challenging financial climate, we have to expect challenge from Essex Fire Authority on whether these practices should be reinstated once the action has come to an end.”
The dispute, about the level of cover required for aerial ladders and other specialist equipment, started in August 2009.How do they feel now, I wonder?
It was temporarily suspended a year ago when an agreement had been reached in principal.
But the industrial action was resumed last September when the union claimed management had added a clause to the agreement document.
The union did not respond to requests for a comment.Never mind. There’s always someone who’ll point out the obvious:
Heinz, Earls Colne says...I’d guess…nothing!
So, Essex firefighters effectively lost £2.2 million in pay.
I wonder how much their FBU organisers lost?
And until union members wise up and start punishing their leaders for getting them embroiled in hopeless battles they can't win, nothing's going to change...
You can just imagine the likes of "Pitbull" from "London's Burning" standing there, scratching his bullet-shaped head & muttering .. "Yeah, well .. we stuck up for our rights bruvvers .. that'll show 'em" .. ;)
ReplyDeleteI hope the unions can pull off a similar coup right accross the jobsworth puplic sector.
ReplyDeleteI've said a few times, let them all go on strike so we can see how little we need them.
What a delightful post! More of these, please!
ReplyDeleteyears ago I worked in an industry that had 100 workers go on strike for six weeks. The union-crazy muppets turned down a generous pay rise and went without any money because of "the principle" of it all.
ReplyDeleteThey eventually came back to work on exactly the terms they had been originally offered, except they were lighter by six weeks pay. I think one of them calculated they would, in fact, have to work many years of overtime to make up what they had lost by their action.
Good call, union organisers!
Heh, a work to misrule.
ReplyDelete"I hope the unions can pull off a similar coup right accross the jobsworth puplic sector."
ReplyDeleteIt's always nice to see someone fatally overreach themselves.. :)
"I think one of them calculated they would, in fact, have to work many years of overtime to make up what they had lost by their action.
"
And just as in this case, I bet they went right on voting in the same union organisers..?
"Heh, a work to misrule."
Indeed!