BRITAIN: Britain's Fire Brigades Union has called off a second eight-day strike due to begin at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The surprise decision followed the intervention of the conciliation service, Acas.
FBU general secretary, Mr Andy Gilchrist, said his executive had made a "reasonable and mature" response" to this "constructive intervention" by Acas and hoped the initial "exploratory talks" would point a positive way toward a settlement of the increasingly bitter pay dispute.
However, Mr Gilchrist said it would be "a grave mistake" for anyone to see this as a climbdown. And he warned that the next planned eight-day strike, due to start on December 16th and continue until Christmas Eve, would go ahead if progress was not made in the intervening weeks.
"The membership has behaved absolutely magnificently. We have always said we wanted a negotiated settlement to the dispute. This gives us a glimmer of hope of achieving that," he said.
Downing Street's response brought a sharp reminder of the gulf still dividing the two sides, welcoming the cancellation of tomorrow's action as "good news" if it indicated acceptance by the FBU that any settlement beyond the 4 per cent on offer would have to be paid for by reform of firemen's working practices.
The FBU had again rejected the government's demands as "completely unacceptable", having heard Fire Services Minister Mr Nick Raynsford praise the army for its emergency role and suggest the experience pointed to new working practices which could be safely adopted by firemen.
The government's emergency committee published a statistical analysis of the strike which concluded 19,000 service personnel had covered for the 55,000 striking firefighters "well". Mr Raynsford said this suggested in particular that two new methods of working could be successful. Joint control centres staffed by firefighters and ambulance and police staff had been effective. And he said emergency night cover could be reduced because most fires occurred from early to mid-evening. However, Mr Gilchrist said it would be "madness" for the government to model the future of the fire service on the basis of a few days' figures.
Ministers believe Mr Gilchrist made a serious mistake last weekend appearing at a rally of the left-wing Campaign Group, at which he said he was ready to see New Labour replaced with "real Labour". This opened the FBU to renewed charges that its strike is politically motivated.