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Essex firefighters' strike ballot ultimatum (From Echo)
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Essex firefighters' strike ballot ultimatum
8:20am Tuesday 16th June 2009
FIREFIGHTERS have given their bosses ten days to shelve plans to shake up frontline services in the county.
Essex crews warned yesterday they would be balloting for industrial action on June 25 if their concerns about the plans were not addressed.
The Fire Brigades Union has accused the Essex Fire Authority of targeting frontline fire crews for cuts, rather than looking for genuine efficiency savings. The FBU claims the fire authority wants to finesse firefighter numbers to effectively cut the number of active staff.
They would go down from 954 in December 2008, to an average of 940 during 2008/9, 920 in 2009/10, and 905 in March 2010.
The result would spread firefighters more thinly across Essex, leaving too few to crew all the county’s fire appliances, union officials claim.
Paul Adams, Essex FBU brigade secretary, said: “We understand the need to look at making efficiency savings, but the frontline 999 emergency response is being cut back while headquarters managers and bureaucrats have been increasing.
“Firefighters can’t crew two fire engines at the same time and we can’t respond to two 999 calls at the same time.”
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RDS Forever, says...
7:19pm Wed 17 Jun 09
When on earth are the FBU going to wake up and smell the coffee.They talk about a ballot for strike action over a few jobs that will go through natural wasteage with NO threat of redundency to its members, whilst hundreds of Essex rate payers loose there jobs through the recesion but still expect them to scrape by and pay there rates so they can pay for there members wages.
The vast majority of Essex FireFighters wholetime and retained are fed up with the constant groaning of the FBU.
There is NO truth that fire cover will be effected in Essex ALL it means that firefighters will have adapt to change like most of us have done in the real world.
Whats next strike for 2per cent pay increase when all other public sector are getting less than 1per cent.
THERE A JOKE