Tory Cuts in

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unemployed Mass meetings of firemen will this week add their voice to the official union protest at Tory plans to slash spending on the fire service-thus putting the lives of firemen and the public at far greater risk.

The Tories have produced a Green Paper which, while claiming that it does not seek primarily to continue savings, proposes a series of major cutbacks in the service, to the tune of a £34 million cut in its annual budget and the withdrawal of 220 appliances.

An FBU booklet Fire Safety -A Public Issue spells out the scope of the planned Tory attack, which will be spurred on by Heseltine's latest £200m cuts in local government spending.

It points out that the existing safety standards established in 1958 were themselves inferior to the measures that had been in force for the preceding 20 years.

Now the Tories plan to adopt standards that are drastically inferior to those of 1958.

They propose to ease the enforcement of Fire Certificate legislation by Fire Authorities, arguing that the fact that there are "only" 1.6 deaths per thousand from fire shows that the problem is "insignificant".

Instead they suggest that employers or occupiers should be prosecuted if after the event of a fire they have been shown to be in breach of fire legislation.

On the fire-fighting service itself, the Tories admit that:

"Because the costs of the fire service are so heavily concentrated on the provision of manpower, the only changes which could have any significant effect on the total costs would be changes in the level of whole-time manpower".

This is spelled out in more detail:

66 ... if the initial attendance times were to be relaxed from two pumps to one, there would be a considerable scope for savings. Even il the average number of pumps per British station were reduced from slightly over two to 1.5 this would result in a saving of over 200 manned appliances or over £34 million per year"

The Tories go on to propose to send less fire appliances to each fire; to cut the numbers of firemen on nightly dutydespite the fact that most serious fires and 50% of all fires in occupied buildings happen at night; to increase the average time taken for a fire appliance to arrive; to slow the pace at which follow-up equipment arrives; to increase the proportion of part-time firemen, to cut the numbers of firemen on each appliance; and to cut back still further on the provision of back-up equipment such as hydraulic platforms, turntable ladders and crash rescue units.

The cuts proposed would involve the loss of up to 4,000 jobs-and untold added dangers to life and limb of firemen and the general public.

The Tory plan is published ifter a year of record fire damages in which the value of property destroyed jumped from £331.6 million to £497.9 million.

This increase cannot be separated from the cuts already made: 47 appliances and 676 fire fighting jobs have been axed in the last 18 months by local authorities,_ and in London alone the GLC is seeking to ir. 1- 1--4 One of the largest meetings seen on Teesside for many years saw the launching of the Middlesbrough section of the Unemployed Workers Union.

The union has the backing of the Middlesbrough Trades Council. There is also to be a section set up in Stockton as well as in other parts of the county of Cleveland.

It is hoped that the Unemployed Workers Union will be able to affiliate to one of the large trade unions in an attempt to fully organise and integrate the unemployed with people still in work.

It is also hoped that it will fight all cuts and threatened redundancies.

At the meeting WSL supporters pointed out the need to fight for unionisation especially of youth in bodies like the National Union of School Students (NUSS), and that no trust should be placed in union leaders who had sold out thousands of jobs recently.

Political fight

They also called for a full-scale political fight to bring down the Tories and stressed that it was important to fight slash a further crews.

The FBU leadership has declared that any attempt to make firemen redundant will be met by national strike action.

It is up to firemen and their fellow trade unionists to ensure that other forms of cuts in the fire service are combatted by equally determined action, and that the FBU proposals for an improved and extended fire service implemented. for the Labour Party to affiliate to the Unemployed Union.

The next meeting will be on September 30 at the Middlesbrough Labour Club, Linthorpe Road, at 7.30 p.m.

There is also to be a Jobs Rally on Saturday 8 November. For further details see future issues of Socialist Press.

on jobs James Prior's constituency of Lowestoft is to be the target of a National Day of Protest Against Unemployment, to be organised on October 25 by the local Trades Council with sponsorship from South Wales NUM.

The Trades Council is asking for maximum delegations to participate in a march and rally, followed by an afternoon conference at the South Pier Pavilion. There is to be a rock policies there is plainly no lack of militancy in the organised working class.

Yet the existing trade union bureaucrats and Labour leaders -whether right or 'left'-have no perspective to offer those workers prepared to fight in defence of jobs, living standards, social services and demorratir rinhte These can only be defended through policieş which start from the independent interests of the working class, which, as an international class, has nothing to gain and everything to lose from attempts to restore the profitability of their "own" employing class.

In a period where the contradictions of the anarchic capitalist svstem force the whnlecale closure and destruction of the productive Torces ot society, only a socialist planned MERSEYSIDE FACTORY CLOSURES L Fisher Bendix Leyland Dunlop Meccano Why campaigns were lost & anhow they can be won A WSL Pamphlet JUST OUT A new pamphlet produced by the North West Area of the League exposing the betrayals of the trade union leadership in the fight against factory closures and the policies needed to defend jobs.

Price 27p including

postage from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX concert at 8.00 p.m.

Speakers include officials from South Wales NUN victimised BL . convenot Derek Robinson and John Deason, organiser of the SWP's Right to Work Campaign.

The march begins at 1pm.

Further • details and credentials can be obtained from the Secretary, Frank Joyce, 37, St George S Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk.

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PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL T NT