LONDON CALLING

December 2002 P.O. Box 467, London, E8 3QX.  classwaruk@hotmail.com 07931 301 901


Welcome to the December London Calling, apologies for the recent slackness in getting this out. London Calling will appear regularly in 2003. In this issue we bring you an interview with a Lambeth Firefighter, the deadline for articles for Class War 85, an article by Bratislava Anti Fascist Action on the recent England V. Slovakia match, and news of our Christmas social.

Subscriptions
Class War subs are now handled by Yorkshire Class War. They can be contacted at P.O. Box 6, Crigglestone, Wakefield, WF4 3WX.

CLASS WAR 85
The deadline for articles for the next paper is January 15 Please send articles, letters, graphics, etc. to the London Class War address. Hard drugs are also welcome.


CHRISTMAS SOCIAL
Class Wars annual Christmas bash will be on Satuday December 21 upstairs at the Wenlock Arms, 26 Wenlock road (off City road), Hoxton – Old Street tube from 7.30 pm onwards. All welcome. As well as the usual food and drink we will show a new Class War video that is a follow to for the successful “Incitement to Riot” film.


The Law Must be Dotty
November saw Princess Anne become the first Royal since King Charles 1st to appear in court. Anne was prosecuted under the dangerous dogs act after her English bull terrior Dotty attacked 2 children in Windsor Park. She was fined 500 pounds. Class War has only one point to make – is their any reason why the bitch was not destroyed?

New This Month

No border jam 6. Is a 30 track compilation CD from the No Border Jam festival at Maribor, Slovenia in 1998. It costs just 6 pounds from the London Class War address.

England Away

England’s away game in Bratislava, Slovakia in October produced a fortunate win, a double- shooting, police baton charges of English fans, and widespread condemnation of the booing of England’s black players by Slovak supporters.

At our request, Bratislava Anti-Fascist Action were good enough to write the following.

The match between the English national team and Slovakia on 12th October has started the discussion on the theme of racism at football stadiums in our society. Such a debate has never been never been held before, despite the fact that racism is a long-term problem on our football terraces. I think it is important to add, that in an opinion poll 36% Slovaks said they don´t want to live in a neighbourhood with people from Arabia, 30% with black people and 65% with gypsies!
There would not be a discussion like this, if the English Football Association did not blame Slovak supporters for racist abuse at two English players. It is always the same. There must be a scandal on an international level before we start to deal with any problems.
What of the coverage of the Slovak press and the views of the Slovak Football Association? (SFA) The SFA has apologised to both black players and their English FA counterparts. In a press report the SFA condemned all racist chants and racist behaviour of Slovak fans and declared its intention to start an anti-racist campaign in co-operation with football clubs and schools. "We have already begun a complex campaign against racism at our grounds, but we want it to involve schools as well as the media. It's definitely a problem for society as a whole," said František Laurinec, president of the SFA.
The SFA has admitted there were racist chants during the Euro 2004 qualifier in Bratislava, but they defend themselves stating that the racism was only a problem among a small group of local hooligans, rather than among all Slovak football fans. “This was proved when Emile Heskey was leaving the field, the Slovak audience spontaneously applauded him for his performance during the game” said Laurinec.
The general secretary of SFA, Dusan Titel, added, that he was surprised by all post-match talk of racism. “Normally we don´t have problems with racism. We accept all English footballers.” said Titel. The response of the coach of the Slovak national team Ladislav Jurkemik was “I couldn´t hear the racial chants, because I was fully concentrated at the game“.
Most journalists and delegates of SFA were sure that their English counterparts made this into a problem bigger than it was. The reason could be the really bad play from the English team and to cover the behaviour of rowdies, who had left broken pubs in Prague, Vienna and also in Bratislava.
At the press conference Emile Heskey talked about racism at the stadium during the match, but surely it was not so bad that he had been subjected to the worst racist taunts of his career in Bratislava.
As Dusan Titel said in an interview for antiracist paper Tolerance “I think, the media has made this problem bigger than it was. I don´t want to say there was no racism at stadium’s, but when we said good bye with to the president of the English Football Association, the English side was satisfied with our service“. Any talk of problems only began at the press conference, he added.
The racism at our stadiums has been a problem for years. There are some racist hooligan mobs in Slovakia. Mostly in Bratislava (the capital city), where two neo-nazi hooligans mobs exist. Ultra Slovan Pressburg and Tiezfanusikovia (it means something like we are fans too). Both of them are aggressive and collaborate with hooligans from other clubs. I can say the rise of the nazi movement in Bratislava has its roots at the football terrace. However it is not just hooligans who are racists. There is racism in the rest of audience at the matches in Bratislava too. Equally there are fans who are not racists.
Souleyman Fall, a Spartak Trnava player from Senegal, in an interview about racism at football has admitted, that he has been racist abused, when there were fans, who came with bunches of bananas and the audience made loud monkey noises at the player throughout the game. The quality of our football is nowadays low and therefore there are not high attendance’s at matches – usually it is something between 5,000 and 8,000 supporters. The Euro 2004 qualifier was an exception.

Bratislava AFA can be contacted at:  bacityafa@yahoo.com

London Blackspot

One thing London does not lack is memorials. This fact means there is even less need for a 5 metre high stone panel depicting a police badge, with a glass tower surrounded by dyed blue water. This is the lunatic plan of Police lickspittle Michael Winner who has invested £1.5 Million of his own money in this project. He expects the public to donate the rest. In addition to this the Police Federation is considering establishing a national Police memorial day. This memorial will be an important addition to the expanding list of Mayday targets and we look forward to this receiving the attentions of as many dogs cocked legs as possible.


DIARY DATES

Every Saturday – Hunt sabbing throughout the South East. Contact the N. London Hunt Saboteurs Association on 07747 165 196. They came to us, now its our turn to go to them!

A date to be confirmed – picket of Hackney Libraries, with scabs likely to be brought in to operate library services on Saturdays. Mass pickets will be held at Hackney central Library, Stoke Newington library and Shoreditch library. Contact Hackney Unison on 020 8356 4071 or the Solidarity Federation on 07799 251 053.

Sunday 1st December - London Class War meeting - Central London venue.

4th December to 12th December – Latest 8 day strike by the Fire Brigades Union commences at 9am. Walk out with them at your local fire station.

Sunday 5th December – Emmaz benefit night. The Lord Cecil, Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, E5. Gertrude and Grunt help to raise money for an autonomous social centre to be set up in London. £4/£3 in.

Saturday 7th December – 1pm to 5pm. Manchester Radical Bookfair at Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Ancoates, Manchester. Bookshops plus meetings, look out for the Class War stall which caused a storm last time.

Thursday 12th December – Anti racist demonstration at the European Union Summit in Copenhagen.

13th December – Danish disobedience day.

14th December – 2 large demonstrations planned for Copenhagen. For all these events visit www.lott.dk and www.ulydighed.dk

16th December to 24th December - Fire fighters walk out at 9am.

15th to 21st December – week of action against the war. Various actions planned in London and the south east. If you can’t find out where they are invent your own!


Thursday 2nd January 2003 – 7pm The Bridge Hotel, Castle Garth, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Dave Douglass’ birthday party. Bands, music and dancing with a Class War flavour.

Sunday 5th January – London Class War meeting. Prestigious central London venue.

15th January – Deadline for articles for issue 85 of Class War.

Tuesday 21st January – TACT social night. 9pm onwards upstairs at the Princess Louise, 208-209 High Holborn, London. Nearet tube Holborn. Social gathering for anti-capitalists.

February 17th – not so Red Ken introduces his congestion charging scheme. At £5 a day to drive in inner London this will serve to price many working class drivers off the road creating space for the wealthy to drive in from the suburbs to work. If not, why don’t they charge £50 a day to drive in central London? Livingston claims profits will be invested in public transport, instead look out for an army of bureaucrats and inspectors coming soon to a street near you. Class War says stop this scheme, destroy the machines and disrupt the wardens.

June– 1st to 3rd G8 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France. Also in the same month look out for the EU summit in Thessaloniki, Greece.

‘ON FIRE’
by a London Firefighter with some imput by Class War

Mechanisms by which firefighters pay is worked out were determined by the strike of 25 years ago. The current pay formula means that Firefighters are aligned with the top % of skilled manual workers, like the assemblers at Dagenham’s Ford plant. Obviously out of date. Workers embodied in the Union want to get Firefighters recognised as skilled technical professionals, because with increasing technology the job already has changed beyond recognition in this time. The National Joint Council (NJC) established by the Fire Services Act 1946 write the common standards as a bottom denominator for all fire services in the UK. They recognised that significant technical change and advances had occurred earlier this year.

As a result the NJC recommended vast increases in pay because of the increasing professionalism, and to make up for falling general pay levels. Andy Gilchrist (Fire Brigades Union Chair) said there was 16% on the table at this time. A rumour confirmed by Ken Livingston in the media subsequently. The current breakdown in negotiations between the employers and the union arose when the government intervened to deny any extra funding for this increase. The Government and Employers have subsequently denied that 16% was ever on the table. Suggesting that there is more political goings on than is first apparent i.e. the government wish to use this to discipline workers generally and the firefighters in particular.

Those recommendations around May 2002 and the Fire Brigade Unions (FBU) conference led to the ballot earlier this year. Negotiations broke down and the Union commissioned the Labour Research Department to examine the pay formula. Their conclusions, taking into account the changing role in order to bring us back to a comparative level of pay as it was at the end of the last strike, would mean that salary would need to increase to £30,000. Which shows an £8,500 shortfall in real terms, a massive falling behind. This needed 40% increase has been hailed by John Prescott as fantasy and by Blair as unreasonable, however it was exactly the same department that recommended that MPs get a raise of 40% as well.

The MPs rise went through without a public mandate but with little media disapproval. It’s clear that giving lots of money to our already privileged political masters is ‘affordable’. However, it’s a case of ‘do as I say but not as I do’. 40% is realistic when applied to a useless politician in the Commons, but it unrealistic and inflationary when demanded by a firefighter.

Enemy propaganda is saying firefighters want parity with the Police, and this has been called unrealistic. Firefighters know though that Commissioner of the London Fire Bridgade, Brian Robinson, changed his title to that used by the boss of the Metropolitan Police, but not his working practices, so that his salary could increase by 20K to 130K. Ordinary firefighters are pissed off with this.

Prior to the strike the Union cancelled 2 sets of 48 hour strike actions as a measure of goodwill, to demonstrate good faith and a desire to negotiate. Emergency discussions over pay with Prescott and the employers produced no further offers only insults, in addition to the 4% they had been offered as an interim ahead of the ballot.

All this in the context of UK firefighters having far better working practices, and is far safer than most worldwide fire services. The UK Fire service leads the world in some key areas and is seen as amongst the top three services in the world.

The Strike

Frustration that no headway was being made and anger at government intervention led the union to ballot its members over strike action. The results of this were known on Friday 18th October, and displayed an overwhelming 87.6% in favour of action. Northern Irelands were counted separately and displayed 96.6% in favour.

So reluctantly on Wednesday 13th November at 1800 hours the first 48 hour strike action was taken, with as good as the entire branch of Lambeth FBU headquarters along with all other branches walking out including some management. Testimony from both nights of picket line action says there was overwhelming public support for them. Cars including Mercs, vans, Lorries, buses, boats on the Thames, were all tooting their horns in a show of solidarity. As well as significant numbers of the public showing support and recalling services rendered in the past, as well as providing food, drink and best wishes. And this at a time when the press were declaring that we had lost public support.

Bain the Pain – Professor Bain

The emergency talks arising from the proposed 48 hour strike actions produced no change in employers attitudes towards pay. In fact it emerged that pay was the last item on the agenda with the employers pushing their managerialist agenda of modernisation (a disguise for redundancy). This exposed these talks as no more than delaying tactics, as was the Bain Report whose findings were speeded up so Bain could come onto TV, and parrot the employers line he was paid to discover. This should have been no surprise as he who pays the monkey calls the tune, but it was another weapon the government used against the firefighters. The whisper that Gilchrist got months ago said that Bains dice were loaded like this.

The Future

Since the first 48 hour action the government has responded with only insults, spin and nothing that could seriously resolve firefighters grievances. This is likely to lead to a hardening attitude and an unfolding series of strikes beyond the 8 day action that started on the 22nd Nov at 0900. The government has been feeding the media distortions about falling levels of public support, when firefighters simply want more pay. Firefighters already know we have public support even if our conservative supporters may be faltering due to the slurs in the media. The journalists seem to be encouraging the firefighters to be slower to respond to the next fire at the Canary Wharf media center or at Wapping?

Firefighters have not mandated Gilchrist to negotiate over conditions and won’t accept any imposed. Gilchrist has Firefighters popular support and should respect this. He has said informally that he will put any proposal to the members before it is accepted. Let’s make sure he knows this. One fireman in front of hundreds of others shouted “Don’t sell us out you cunt” to Gilchrist at a mass meeting recently – a free year’s subscription to Class War to the first firefighter to claim it was him!

The bosses modernisation means cutting fire cover at night in terms of personnel and appliances, and cutting overall staff levels. Effectively asking us to do more for less, which will affect morale. Is this what the public want with a perceived increased threat from terrorism? They claim that there is a reduced number of call outs at night but fail to mention that all the serious call outs happen at night, including life threatening incidents. During the day you have routine calls like people stuck in lifts that aren’t as problematic but are more numerous.

The union’s idea of modernisation is better equipment, more effective training and so on. Unfortunately in the London Fire Brigade there is a lot of people waiting for first aid course renewals. When Stations appliances are being serviced they are finding 15 year old appliances that should no longer be in service. All of which is a result of employers so called modernisation already, including an engine that takes 2 minutes to warm up before it will leave the station. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

The reluctance by firefighters to strike should not be misinterpreted as weakness, the resolve is there to get a serious increase and to continue for as long as it takes. Solidarity like tube drivers striking on the same day as firefighters, and visiting fire stations is to be encouraged. Lets try to spread this strike as much as possible. The firefighters strike is due to government intervention in normal negotiating machinery. It will not be resolved by their posturing or attempts at strike breaking.

www.fbu.org.uk www.supportyourfirefighters.com www.30kfairpay.co.uk www.classwaruk.org