Report - Fire Brigades Union

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SECTION G — INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION those attending for solidarity, during periods of strike action. LFEPA was represented by Queen’s Counsel, junior counsel and LFEPA’s legal department. Strike action had been called and took place on 23 October 2010 and 1 November 2010, during which two members (including London’s executive council member) and a police officer were injured by vehicles driven by strike breakers. The claimant had also been notified that further strike action had been called for 5, 6 and 7 November 2010 commencing at 10 am on 5 November. The correspondence The claimant faxed a letter to the general secretary on the evening of 2 November 2010 setting out various allegations and seeking a response by 12 noon on 3 November 2010. They made no attempt to contact the general secretary by mobile telephone or email to inform him about this and arrange delivery that evening. They simply faxed the letter to head office after the office had closed. Neither the general secretary nor the national officer saw that letter until the morning of 3 November by which time it was too late to respond by 12 noon that day. A letter from the general secretary, confirming that he would look into the allegations but that it would not be possible to respond by 12 noon on that day, was immediately sent. Nothing further was received on 3 November from LFEPA making any suggestion that the claimant would be applying to the court for an interim injunction or imposing any further deadline. Instead they again waited until after head office had closed and then wrote at 20:07 to give notice of an intended application on 4 November. Once again they failed to do anything to ensure the general secretary received the letter on the night it was sent, something they could easily have done. So the union did not receive that notice until the morning when the solicitors were instructed immediately. The general secretary, having been intensively involved in discussions with LFEPA, did not have the opportunity to go through LFEPA’s paperwork and prepare a statement in reply, which may have led to one or more of the days of action planned for 5, 6 or 7 November being called off. The union claimed it was wholly inconsistent for the claimant to stress their concerns for public safety in London whilst placing the general secretary in the impossible position of having to choose between those discussions of crucial importance for public safety and preparing evidence in response to their allegations. The net result of the interim injunction was that the judge made no finding either way on the LFEPA allegations that there had been breaches of the legislation. He accepted the union’s proposal to give undertakings to abide by the laws governing picketing in relation to any further industrial action during the dispute. This was naturally proposed as the union’s position throughout and that it had abided by those laws and that this would continue to be the case. In an effort to resolve the dispute, the matter was referred to the Resolution Advisory Panel which met on 16 November 2010 to hear the dispute. The outcome is reported in Section A of this annual report. A consultative ballot of the membership in December 2010 agreed to accept the RAP outcome. Essex dispute The trade dispute registered with Essex Fire Authority on 15 June 2009 continued throughout 2010. Various types of action short of strike commenced on 26 August 2009 and continued into 2010. January 2010 began with the fire authority refusing the reasonable request – made in accordance with Grey Book provisions and the NJC good industrial relations protocol – to jointly seek the third party assistance of the NJC joint secretaries. This was followed by the unilateral decision to suspend the locally agreed consultation and negotiation framework and a review of time off for trade union duties including the cessation of paid trade union leave for those undertaking regional activities. Industrial relations deteriorated and the industrial action continued. In March exploratory discussions began in an effort to find a potential settlement to the trade dispute. The discussions turned into concerted negotiations. Outline terms for a potential settlement were developed positively, and then on 30 April the FBU announced a temporary suspension of industrial action to assist a final round of detailed negotiations. On 25 June, the resultant proposed “full and final” terms of settlement were sent out to the Essex FBU membership for consultation with the recommendation from the brigade committee to accept. On 13 July, the FBU confirmed to the fire authority that the Essex membership had voted to accept the terms of settlement and that once the agreement was signed by both parties the general secretary would issue the formal notice concluding the trade dispute. The date for signing was set for 21 July. At the signing, the Essex chief fire officer produced a unilaterally amended version of the proposed terms of settlement. No agreement was reached on the revised wording. Subsequent attempts to find mutually acceptable amendments were rejected by the chief fire officer. Eventually, on 8 September, the chief fire officer confirmed the fire authority would defer any further progress on a proposed settlement to the trade dispute until after the Comprehensive Spending Review. The notice reinstating the industrial action short of strike was issued by the general secretary on 13 September 2010. The action included an overtime ban; an acting-up ban; a ban on any new temporary promotions to fire station rider posts; a ban on managers working on rota leave days; a ban on new secondary contracts; and a ban on any new additional work agreements. The trade dispute remained unresolved and the industrial action continued into 2011. 106 FBU Annual Report 2011
SECTION G — INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION Merseyside Trade dispute: job losses and removal of posts in RRT (resource and resilience team) and the operational resource centres, application of LLAR (low level of activity and risk) criteria and conversion of Grey to Green Book posts Background to the ballot and the issues to which the dispute relates Members were made aware of the proposals by the fire authority to: 1. Reduce the number of firefighters in RRT from 57 to 20 and reduce crew managers in RRT from 15 to 4; Region 7 West Midlands Warwickshire Region 8 Region 9 Region 10 Region 11 Kent East Sussex Region 12 Berkshire Region 13 Colin Jarrett Pardeep Raw Donny Clarke Brian Amos Vacant Garrett Brooks Carole Brown Carole Brown Iain Stewart Andre Fernandes (acting) Andre Fernandes Vacant 2. Reduce the crewing of prime movers in the operational resource centres to one driver; 3. Continue the application of the authority’s LLAR criteria without referring this issue to ACAS arbitration; 4. Facilitate the conversion of 36 day-related Grey Book posts to 36 Green Book posts without identifying the relevant posts. Members were informed of the result of the ballot for industrial action short of a strike, in the form of a refusal to work pre-arranged overtime. Number of votes cast in the ballot: 522 Number of individuals answering “yes”: 367 Number of individuals answering “no”: 155 Number of spoiled voting papers: 0 Yes: 70.3% No: 29.7% G5 B&EMM national committee report 2010 B&EMM representatives B&EMM executive and national committee meetings 2010 20 January B&EMM executive London 25-26 February B&EMM national committee Birmingham 23 March B&EMM executive London 24-25 June B&EMM national committee Bristol 10 August B&EMM executive London 3 September B&EMM executive Coventry 27 September B&EMM national committee Birmingham 27 October B&EMM executive Birmingham 13-14 December B&EMM national committee London B&EMM executive – meeting held between full business meetings attended by B&EMM EC member, national secretary, national chair and national vice-chair. B&EMM EC member B&EMM national secretary B&EMM national chair Region 1 Region 2 Region 3 Region 4 South Yorkshire Region 5 GMC Region 6 Nottingham Leicestershire Michael Nicholas Elected Dec 2010 Samantha Samuels Elected Dec 2007 Lud Ramsey Elected Sept 2010 Lud Ramsey Vacant Lee Brown Mark Brown Mark Brown Vacant Carl Petch Dalton Powell Dalton Powell Ronnie Stanley Reports January 2010 Al Sharpton visit 21 January 2010 – Friends House, London The Reverend Al Sharpton came to London for an event organised by Operation Black Vote (OBV) called “Realising the dream”. Lee Jasper and Simon Woolley (OBV) were the other main speakers and among the issues discussed was black underrepresentation at all political levels. Simon informed us that now, more than ever, our vote could make a difference to who gets the keys to No. 10. Al Sharpton said that this generation bequeathing a worse FBU Annual Report 2011 107
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The Fire Brigades Union Executive C
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Section D Pensions 91 Section E AIF
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Report - Fire Brigades Union

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