Anger at civilian fire crew plan

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:46 am

A scheme to train civilians to fight fires in London is aimed at creating "strike breakers", it is claimed.

The £9m project to train 700 people will create "Dad's Army firefighters", the Fire Brigades' Union (FBU) said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8180366.stm

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:56 am

Another crack pot idea by a tin pot dictator

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:01 pm

Inspect every vehicle with a fine toothcomb.

Accident damage - fail it

Pump foam pick up not working - fail it

Holmatro tray catches bent - fail it.

Dirty vehicle returned - fail it

Instrument display lights defective? - fail it

Ask Clive Robinson for a copy of the agreement as to how they are to present vehicles when returning them to station.

If the scabs support group want to take £12 million from our pressed budget, make sure they spend it keeping our vehicles just as they should be.

Fight back.

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:15 am

We tried this and apparently the contract has been “re negotiated” the machines no longer have to be clean, full of derv and can have code 2 defects with them. The faults you mention will at best be a code 2 if not a code 3 and they will not take it back.
Just prang the motors instead then they will have to repair them.

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:25 pm

If a driver rejects a vehicle, they can't make you put it on the run.
It’s down to the driver, not a guy on the phone based in Dublin.
Kentish Town is the station to look at, they constantly reject sub standard motors, even getting the delivery driver to clean one delivery before it went on the run last month.

If that vehicle then fails on a job / shout, they would have to take responsibility.

Further news from my Arse-it-Co snout is they are currently refurbishing around 20 former Volvo's that have been lying redundant at Ruislip for two years. These, and some Volvo's that went to Lincolnshire will form the Fire Scab fleet.

They will be operating without any name on them.

They don't want to use operational units as they know we would take them all off the run with defects the moment we came back on duty.

The scab drivers are apparently being trained by BSM! Yes BSM! in 'advanced driving' techniques for any emergency calls they may be called onto.

Personnel are supplied by Reliance Security. So if they can speak in English, that will be something new for Reliance.
I suspect Polish may be the order of the day for mobilising purposes.

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 8:08 am

The whole key to arse-it co’s scab fleet is the assumption that we will go on strike and these will be used to break us.

If we maintain the current stance we are about to take, of not acting up, no pre arranged overtime etc etc there will be no grounds to use this scab fleet. The effect upon the brigade may or may not be limiting, but ultimately there is nothing management can do just because we no longer want to play their games.

Management will provoke us to take strike action in an attempt to justify their decision to give arse-it co loads of money, it’s up to us to show, that once again management could not organise a piss up in a brewery

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:01 pm

I agree, and I don't want strike action any more than anyone else does.

It would have been very interesting to see how the Walter Mitty Brigade would have coped with some of the recent jobs at Soho, Shoreditch, Purley, Camberwell and Streatham to mention but a few.

They'll cope on a normal day, but that's the beauty of London, one day we're twiddling our thumbs, next day you have two 20 pump and 3 large flooding calls all on the go.

We'll cope, they won't.