Fire fighters from all over the country staged a mass demonstration in Barnsley on Tuesday 28^th September in support of South Yorkshire fire-fighters, who are protesting against an arbitrary change of shift patterns forced upon them by ultimatum by their bosses, South Yorkshire Fire Authority.  The authority have told the fire-fighters that  that they must accept a change of shift patterns from 9 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts or else face compulsory redundancy. This ultimatum threatens the jobs of 744 fire-fighters across South Yorkshire.

The demonstration by 2,500 fire-fighters from all around the country made a colourful and noisy sight as they marched through the town centre of Barnsley. The marchers took time to stop outside the offices of the Fire Authority to voice their anger and frustration at management tactics in attempting to force through radical and fundamental changes to their contracts against the will of their employees.

If the fire-fighters do not or cannot work the shifts in those new contracts for family, childcare or other reasons they have been warned that they will be sacked without redundancy payments. This amounts to a blatant disregard of work / life balance good practice as well as being tantamount to blackmail against a background of unemployment and recession. Local fire-fighter, Nigel Bailey told Socialist Appeal that he and his wife are  incensed that the his bosses will not listen to any compromise put forward by his union and that their own family care arrangements will be badly affected by the imposition of the new shift patterns.  Jeremy Pagan of the FBU said “the attacks on the conditions of service of fire-fighters amounts to a cut in frontline services.” On the same evening Alistair Darling speaking from the Labour Party conference told Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight  “ We will protect frontline services from any future cuts.”

The actions in Barnsley have been supported by Doncaster fire-fighters who have voted to strike in response to the actions of the South Yorkshire fire authority. This dispute has the full backing of the FBU and is set to escalate unless the bosses see sense and restore the hard fought conditions of service back to normal.