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AN END TO a 10-month dispute between the FBU and central government may be in sight, after ministers made major concessions in their plans to dismiss ill or injured firefighters without a pension.
The retreat came in the face of a sustained union campaign, which almost certainly would have culminated in members across the country being balloted for strike action.
The dispute exploded last July, when three disabled ex-London firefighters had their pension payments terminated by LFEPA following introduction of new rules on ill-health pensions. The changes demanded that firefighters be denied a pension if they were deemed able to fulfil just one of the duties within their role, irrespective of whether there was another job available.
This rendered it effectively impossible for firefighters to receive a pension if they were medically retired from the service—even if they sustained an injury in the line of duty
In response, the union challenged the actions of LFEPA and the government through the courts and launched a nationwide campaign to reverse the changes.
The union won the early legal skirmishes, after government lawyers accepted that the termination of payments to the three was a breach of natural justice, and LFEPA was forced to reinstate payments pending the outcome of a judicial review at the high court
The union’s campaign also led to the devolved Scottish administration reversing the changes and reinstating ill-health pensions for firefighters north of the border
In its verdict published on 15 May, however, the high court—perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the historical disinclination of senior judges to back trade unions—ruled in favour of the government.
This meant that the union’s only option now was to massively increase the pressure on government ministers with threats of national strike action. It is this pressure that led last week to ministers agreeing to radically water down the changes and all but return to the position that existed prior to the imposition of the new rules. Crucially, the ruling that firefighters be denied a pension if they can fulfil just one of the duties within their role looks set to be ditched.
Union officials are due to meet with government ministers and senior civil servants to further discuss the developments. But the signs are that the union will achieve virtually all of its demands
The FBU’s executive council member for London, Ian Leahair, said, “Nothing has yet been agreed, but it certainly looks as though we have forced the government to back off. Following the outcome of the judicial review, the union made clear that a ballot for national strike action was on the cards. It is this that has forced the retreat
“There is absolutely no way we could have sat back and watched our members thrown on the scrapheap so contemptuously. Over time, it was becoming clear that this was a view shared by many senior figures within the UK fire and rescue service and that government ministers were becoming increasingly isolated
“There are still a number of technical issues that need to be addressed with regards to future arrangements, and we may still be required to have a scrap with them in one or two areas, but the central issue of whether firefighters receive an ill-health pension when they are unfit for work looks like being settled to our advantage. “As ever, I want to thank all London FBU members for standing strong throughout this campaign.”
