The rail unions should not use the safety of the public as a political tool

Bob Crow, the leader of the RMT rail union, is an easy man to demonise. That is, he cares little about his public image. So extreme is his distaste for the Blairite ways of spin and presentation that, when criticised he has replied to his critics with the refrain so beloved of his fellow Millwall football fans: "No one likes us, we don't care." He has had nice things to say about the Soviet Union. He makes no secret of the fact that his politics are "socialist" in a very old-fashioned sense. None of this has endeared him to the nation.

Defiant as ever, Mr Crow is, not for the first time, proposing to disrupt the lives of the travelling public, mainly on the London Underground, with industrial action on the grounds of safety considerations during the firefighters' planned strikes. Mr Crow fought a spirited guerrilla war against the public-private partnership for the Tube on similar grounds, and shows every sign that he has the same determination in this case.

Mr Crow has sometimes given the impression that he is happy to use the safety argument as a rather flimsy veil for what would once have been called secondary or "sympathetic" action. Rather like the prisoners of war at Colditz, who regarded it as their duty to escape, Mr Crow seems to think it is his duty to go on strike.

Yet we should not dismiss Mr Crow's concerns about safety out of hand. The management of London Underground itself concedes that the 19 deepest Tube stations in the system cannot be counted as safe during a firefighters' strike, and it will close them in any case, something that will cause a great deal of inconvenience. London Underground and the Health and Safety Executive argue that the other stations can be regarded as safe, but it would be understandable if many feel that they cannot accept this claim at face value. There will be many Tube drivers, and passengers as well, who will feel nervous about the consequences of a fire or a terrorist bomb at a station or on a train. Even though the Fire Brigades Union has been negotiating about its members going back to work in the case of a major incident, how long would be the inevitable delay in their response? How effective would the Green Goddesses be in the meantime? How many lives would be lost unnecessarily? It is an uneasy thought.

So London Underground, and indirectly, the Government, is left in a very difficult position if it wants to take the RMT to court on the grounds that it is taking illegal secondary action in support of the firefighters. The rail union may have a case on safety that would stand up in court, notwithstanding the judgment of the HSE. Ministers would not want to place themselves in a position where they appear to be willing to take risks with the safety of the public just so that they can win a strike.

With industrial action by nurses and other public workers at least possible over the next few months, events may soon begin to justify that most over-used phrase, "the winter of discontent". But, intractable as things may become, Mr Blair is right to resist the firefighters' claim for a 40 per cent increase and to press for a settlement based on a revised pay formula. It has, unfortunately, become a test case for the rest of the public sector.

The firefighters have a good case for more money and for modernising their pay formula. The review under Sir George Bain will almost certainly deliver both of these by December. The firefighters have only to wait a few more weeks. Their case is not so strong that it can justify a single avoidable death.