Firefighters stage new strike over pensions
![[Image: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian.]](http://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141209Firefighters-strike.jpg)
[Image: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian.]
Thousands of members of the Fire Brigades Union are expected to join a lunchtime rally in Westminster before lobbying MPs to support their campaign against controversial changes to pensions and retirement age.
Brigades across the country will put contingency plans into place, amid warnings that a normal service will not be provided during the 24-hour walkout from 7am, with less serious incidents such as fire alarms and bin fires left unattended.
The union said improvements to pension arrangements had been made in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but an “unworkable” scheme was being imposed by the Westminster government.
The FBU has accused fire minister Penny Mordaunt of misleading Parliament after she told MPs that if a firefighter loses fitness through no fault of their own, they should get another role or a full, unreduced pension.
The union said fire authorities across the country had failed to back up the minister’s “guarantee”.
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Don’t the heartless communists in the Fire Brigades Union understand that, by walking out on strike, the lives of countless poor, innocent cats will be put in jeopardy?
When he is re-elected, David Cameron must withdraw the right to strike from the firemen by making them part of the armed forces or part of the Police Service.
Sensible policies for safe little kitties!
Unfortunately, all our lives will be put at risk if potential firefighters don’t join the service because they know they’ll be diddled out of their pensions when age catches up with them.
Their places can be filled by unemployed and otherwise untrained yobs who would normally be just sponging off the hard working taxpayers. Make them join the Fire Service in return for their benefits1
Please don’t put ideas into Tory heads!
I am sure that the idea will already have occurred to the creature known here as RTU.
Firefighters like the Police need to retire at 55 because they are needed to be physically strong to do the job. And both are just as likely to be physically assaulted.
What use is a firefighter if they cannot carry a disabled or injured person out of a burning building.
But also as the state pension is lost from 2016 and the retirement age has risen to even 73 in some benefit rules (Universal Credit), then the state pension is gone.
The ‘young yobs’ (as if all the young are jobs – sic) of the Tory soundalike replier, are not sponging off the hard working taxpayer.
Those on benefit are not even 3 per cent of the benefit bill.
The hard-working taxpayer is the bulk of those on benefit because their wages are starvation wages far below a living wage, which is the bulk of the increase of jobs since 2008.
The ‘make then join in return for their benefits’ is nonesense.
The poor, in or out of work, pay a 90 per cent tax rate, from the 75 per cent of all tax that comes from stealth indirect taxes and VAT, we all pay, in or out of work and however long we live.
No politician from the so-called big parties seem to grasp this basic economic fact.
Go ask The Guardian.
I was a hard working taxpayer paying National Insurance for a third of a century.
And I have been diddled out of £278.10 per week since 2013 of state pension whilst politicians mis-sold the opt out from SERPs since 6 April 1978.
See under my petition in my WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT section at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
It is not .. heartless communists … because the aristocratic mindset educated in public schools and Oxford and Cambridge are the reason for the strike, the political class.
No communist rules anywhere in government or councils.
And the union is about health and safety of the victims of a fire, as well as the firefighter.
The Fire Service is being destroyed by the Tories, because of cuts, but cutting works pension by raising retirement age for firemen is a dereliction of the duty of government to the people and businesses.
We pay a large part of our council tax towards the fire service that is the Fire and Rescue Service.
Oh dear.
I had hoped that my mention of the dangers posed to cats of the firemen’s strike might have provided a clue that I was not entirely serious.
If the Tories do win another five years they’ll probably take the firefighter’s strike rights away, or make them personally liable for any deaths and damage caused during a strike.
If I had to be forced to be a firefighter, at least it would be a genuinely interesting job, but I doubt I’d be a very good one.