Fbu Slams Army Scabs

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With the bitter experience of their nine-week pay strike against Callaghan's Labour government, firemen are in no mood to accept similar treatment again-let alone from the Tories.

This was the clear message from last week's FBU conference in Bridlington.

One resolution opposing one of the union-bashing plans of the Tory government was moved by London delegate Terry Beckwith and seconded by Mick Rowlinson of the Bucks brigade, that:

"In the light of the recent change of government of the country, conference affirms that it would strongly oppose any attempt to withdraw the right to strike from trade unionists'.

This was carried by the conference, as was a Bucks resolution demanding that the TUC take the position of total opposition to the use of the armed forces as strikebreakers.

The Bucks motion went on to call on the TUC to "support fully any trade union members against whom the armed services are being used to break their industrial action"

No criticism Mick Rowlinson, moving, pointed out that after the TUC had voted not to support the firemen in their lone battle against Phase 3, army strikebreaking continued without criticism-let alone without TUC action.

This must never be to happen again, he said.

He went on speak to strongly against a Cheshire amendment seeking. the campaign for unionisation of the police and the army-which was defeated by the conference.

Rowlinson was also the only delegate to take issue with the otherwise generally accepted formulation on pay by the FBU leadership, summed up in a composite motion that declared:

"This conference demands that on satisfactory settlement of the 1978/9 pay agreement, the EC take immediate steps to maintain Fire Service pay at minimum of the upper quartile of the male manual workers' earnings. This position to be maintained regardiess of any future govenment pay policy"

FBU leader Parry Speaking in the debare on the emergency "right to strike" motion, Rowlinson warned that linking pay to the upper quartile did not offer any protection against inflation:

"If the top paid 25% of male manual workers accept pay restraint and offers below the inflation rate, then we, too; are tied to that", he stressed.

The conference went on to pass a witch-hunting resolution urging the Executive Council to "take immediate steps to find the source' of leaks of information to the press.

This was generally understood not to mean the Tory press, but the WRP's daily Newsline, which has closely followed the struggles within the FBU.

FBU members should shun such witch-hunting-and concentrate rather on the unprincipled manoeuvres that their right wing leaders are so keen to carry out in secrecy.

The Institution of Professional Civil Servants has for a long time been the most "moderate" of the Civil Service Unions; even affiliation to the TUC, accepted only in 1976, is still viewed with suspicion by a proportion of the

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