Firefighters to strike after talks collapse

Firefighters are to go ahead with a national strike, from 6pm tomorrow, for the first time in 25 years after last-ditch peace talks collapsed this afternoon.

Leaders of the Fire Brigades Union spent just a few minutes with local authority employers but were not given the improved pay offer they had been seeking.

FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist said he was extremely angry at the lack of progress and blamed the Government for interfering in the bitter dispute.

Mr Gilchrist emerged from the talks in central London to address a group ofaround 100 firefighters who were waiting outside for any developments.

Speaking through a megaphone he said the employers had told him they were linking any proposed deal with the recommendations of the independent review chaired by Sir George Bain.

The review suggested that firefighters should receive a pay rise of 4% now and 7% next year but only if firefighters agreed to accept big changes in working practices.

The union's executive decided that they could not accept any offer which followed the Bain recommendations and decided that the strike would go agead.

Mr Gilchrist added: "I am extremely angry. We have no alternative other than to reject the insulting offer which has been made to some the finest public servants in the world."

He claimed that the offer of a 4% rise might not even apply to all firefighters and had many strings - "even ropes" - attached.

Matt Wrack, the unions' regional organiser in London, said: "It is clear that the Government's interference took away from the employers any room for manoeuvre.

"FBU members will find it remarkable that we have only been offered a 4% pay rise when we know the employers were prepared to offer 16% earlier in the year."

More than 50,000 firefighters across the UK will now walk out from 6pm tomorrow for 48 hours followed by a series of eight-day-long strikes between the end of November and Christmas Eve.