Prescott says fire offer is 'final'

FBU members will consider the offer on 19 March

The government has said there will be no improvement on a pay offer made to firefighters by their employers.

Officials for the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) have reacted angrily to the offer of 16% over three years, which would raise a frontline firefighter's pay to £25,000 within 16 months.

Some called for immediate strike action instead of waiting for the national conference to consider the offer later this month.

Local authority employers said they were stunned and disappointed at the rejection, as it was their final offer.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has said the offer would not be improved and it was now up to the firefighters to decide what to do next.

"I think they should look at the offer, it is a good offer and they should talk about it," he said.

Overtime ban

Hearing of the deputy prime minister's comments, Mr Gilchrist said: "That is unfortunate because we haven't had the opportunity to exchange ideas."

Union activists were angered by the strings attached to the pay offer, which they say would worsen working conditions for firefighters across the country.

I think they should look at the offer, it is a good offer and they should talk about it

John Prescott
Deputy Prime Minister

They said that if the ban on overtime was lifted the amount of overtime worked by firefighters would be equivalent to 4,500 jobs.

The union added that it was not a straightforward 16% pay increase on offer.

They said that under the proposed deal firefighters would receive a 4% pay rise, with the rest dependent on agreeing to the new working practices.

FBU president Ruth Winters said the FBU was now seeking a meeting with Mr Prescott as soon as possible in a renewed bid to resolve the dispute.

Public support

Union members will vote on the offer at the conference in Brighton on 19 March.

Mr Prescott has previously threatened to impose a pay settlement if an agreement cannot be reached.

The union could go to John Prescott

The main sticking points have been about conditions of service rather than pay.

FBU national officer Geoff Ellis also rejected claims that public support for the firefighters was waning after the series of strikes during which military troops provided cover.

Mr Ellis said people would continue to support them when they realised the offer meant a worse service, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

John Ransford, one of the employers' chief negotiators, said the FBU's position was very frustrating.

The package was "above anything else in the public sector", he told Today.

"We have put an imaginative, creative, offer on the table which goes to the absolute limit of what we can provide," he said.

"I don't know where we go from here."

'Disgraceful'

But Jim Barber, the union's executive member for Northern Ireland, said there was "absolute outrage" among his members at the offer.

"It is important that the public realises this offer only guarantees us an increase of 4%.

"The remainder of the package is dependent on us accepting massive changes to our working conditions. It is a disgraceful offer."

Under the offer, the union would have to end its ban on overtime, while conditions of service issues would be decided locally.

The offer over three years followed by a two-year pay formula would be in return for a modernisation package tied to Sir George Bain's fire service review.

The union has been hostile to this review on fire service modernisation, describing it as "irrelevant and dangerous".

The firefighters have been in dispute with their local authority employers since calling for a 40% pay increase last year.

The FBU, which organised a series of strikes from November, had previously rejected an offer of 11% over two years conditional on it accepting major working practices reform.