Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike M2 who wrote (198307)	10/17/2002 7:20:48 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 436258

Some impressive data. Thanks for the link. Some TL and EV for you -g/ng- Fact is your right, and it's probably just starting. Here in the UK the big news is (though the news seems blocked a little) is the pending strike by fire fighters asking for a 40% pay raise. Once again, the army is being mobilized to replacing the fire crews using 1950's equipment. Although the army are enthusiastic guys, more fire deaths will result if this action takes place. Maybe hundreds of people in a fairly short time. A Bali scenario in repetition every week or so. The attraction of becoming a firefighter is strong amongst many males here, some females too. It is against their very nature to let people burn to death and just stand by. Trouble is the politicians use this fact to the ultimate degree. The fat ugly turd government minister John Prescott says a 40% pay increase is "unrealisitic". The pay of a qualified fire fighter here is £22.5k. After a while any job just becomes "a job". It's the wives and creditors that have to be listened too besides the screams of people desperately wanting saving from fires. As if that fat turd John Prescott earns a penny of the exulted wage he greedily campaigned for. There is also a bunch of anti union horse chit about modernization and stuff. As if Fire unions would not welcome new technology to fight fires with. There is major political B/S happening to a putrid degree. sky.com politics.guardian.co.uk Bosses make 11th-hour bid to stop fire strikes Staff and agencies Thursday October 17, 2002 Employers today made a last-minute appeal to firefighters' leaders to postpone the threat of strikes in a dispute over pay even though industrial action now looks virtually certain to go ahead. Local government officials said they were "incredulous" that the Fire Brigades union was set to call strikes rather than wait for the outcome of a review into the fire service, which is due to report in December. The employers said that if the FBU's near-40% pay demand was repeated across the public sector, the basic rate of income tax would have to rise by 20%, or 3.9p in the pound. "Employers do not believe that the UK taxpayer would accept such an increase - particularly at a time when the public is concerned that any additional government funding for public services should not be swallowed up in over-inflated wage demands made by the most vocal unions in the sector," officials said in a statement. The union is tomorrow expected to set a series of strike dates after announcing the result of a ballot of its 50,000 members. The employers today submitted its evidence to the review, including recommendations on modernising the service such as simplifying the rank structure and introducing more flexible shift systems. They also called for better working arrangements with local communities and agencies such as social services to reduce the risk to life of fires. The fire service needed to better reflect the communities it served, the employers said, complaining that 99% of firefighters were male and 98.5% were white. Countering union claims that the fire service has already been modernised, the employers said that working practices had been "remarkably unchanged" for the last 25-30 years. "The prevailing culture is one that resists change that in any way involves switching resources to an overall improved effect," said the submission. The union was accused of opposing the removal of restrictive practices that were making modernisation "difficult, if not impossible".