Since last November more than 55,000 firefighters have taken part in a series of one- and two-day strikes to demand a substantial wage raise and oppose the employers’ plans to institute large-scale layoffs and cut back fire fighting services. On each occasion the government has mobilized around 19,000 army, navy, and air force strikebreakers to run their own fleet of fire fighting trucks.

Prescott told the House of Commons that he would sponsor a bill giving him the power to set wages and conditions. Settlement of the dispute was pressing, he said, because of the U.S.-UK assault on Iraq and what he called the "heightened threat of terrorism." Having 19,000 soldiers "tied down" after military action had begun would be "extraordinary and unacceptable," he added.

The Conservative Party’s deputy leader, David Davis, said that the danger of strike action was "starker" now than before. The legislation should include the power to ban further strikes, he said.

Several days earlier the Conservative defense spokesperson, Bernard Jenkin, commenting on the FBU announcement that another strike would go ahead on March 20, accused the FBU of acting like "Saddam’s friends."

Gen. Michael Jackson, the head of the British army, said in a March 17 television interview, "I hope [the dispute] gets settled before the next few weeks because that would relieve the army of a very considerable burden." The Guardian reported that a naval petty officer serving in the Gulf "was quoted...accusing the firefighters of ‘betraying their country’ by threatening to strike."

In the face of this pressure, the union executive voted 12–6 to accept a new offer from the employers and call off the action.

The deal provided for a 16 percent wage increase over three years, tied to cuts and changes in working practices. Union leader Andy Gilchrist said that the offer was "the best available in the current political situation," reported the BBC.

However, the following day the union’s 500-member delegate conference meeting in Brighton, threw out the agreement. Tennyson Turney of the Cambridgeshire FBU told reporters, "Nothing has changed from the original offer."

The proposed deal will now be discussed by firefighters across the country over the next two weeks, and will be submitted to another national delegate conference.  
 
 
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