|
CounterPunch
November
21, 2002
Heroes and Villains:
The Sun, Saddam and the Fire Strike
by WILLIAM MacDOUGAL
Anyone labouring under the misconception that
Britain's striking firemen would receive a hearing in accordance
with the high levels of public goodwill traditionally enjoyed
by the fire service must surely have been brought back to earth
with a thump by the amount of vitriol levelled at firemen in
the last few days by columnists and cabinet members alike. The
Sun--as is usually the case--was first out of the traps.
"FIRE CHIEFS ARE SADDAM STOOGES"
ran the front page headline of 14th November. "Two union
chiefs who led firefighters out on strike went to Iraq and returned
spouting Saddam Hussein's propaganda" the Sun revealed.
Employing the sort of sleight of hand which would make even the
most seasoned of card sharks blush, a four page article concerning
a solidarity visit to Iraqi firemen published in FireFighter
magazine became "anti-British propaganda" and the fruits
of a "treacherous, backside licking visit to Saddam's dangerous
dictatorship."
The truth is predictably more prosaic:
The "hard-left stooges" in question (FBU officials
Bob Pounder and Howard Weston) made the mistake of criticising
Britain's questionable position on sanctions against Iraq on
their return from a visit to fellow firefighters in Iraq. One
of of the men, "unmasked as Britain's 50,000 firefighters
walked out at 6pm last night despite fears of terror attacks",
committed the cardinal sin of wearing Iraqi dress. Pounder, who
"has risen through the ranks of the FBU by championing extreme
left-wing causes" even invited a group of asylum seekers
campaigning against repressive Turkish prison conditions to tea
at his office. On Iraqi sanctions, Pounder wrote, "surely
our government is not beyond reproach and accountability in contentious
areas of foreign policy." Hanging's too good for 'em you
might think.
The fact that FBU general secretary Andy
Gilchrist has a photo of Che Guevara on his office wall was cited
as evidence of his role as "a political activist; a classic
Marxist-Leninist; a throwback to the Scargill eraGilchrist is
putting lives at risk. People have ALREADY died. How much more
damage can this man be allowed to cause?"
A companion piece cartoon to the previous
day's "Sun Says" editorial has Gilchrist sitting at
his desk beneath the offending photograph. "If you're
looking for further inspiration, Andy, look what I've brought
back from Baghdad" says an FBU member holding a poster of
Saddam Hussein replete with the slogan "Saddam--In Solidarity"
(Osama Bin Laden will doubtless make a cameo appearance should
the strike become prolonged).
The "Evil Hun" and the "Soviet
Menace" have been usurped in modern times by Saddam Hussein,
Slobodan Milosevic, Osama Bin Laden and--you guessed it--Saddam
Hussein. Aligning striking firemen to such bogeymen however,
is an alarming and worrying return to the sort of tactics employed
to undermine former NUM president Arthur Scargill. Of course,
that is to forget that Scargill too belongs to the aforementioned
list of bogeymen--in other countries a flawed champion perhaps,
in Britain a zero.
Serious journalists attacked Scargill
with "a level of vituperation verging on the unhinged"
wrote Seamus Milne in "The Enemy Within", his account
of the government campaign to crush the miners. During the strike,
NUM leaders Arthur Scargill, Mick McGahey and Peter Heathfield
were subjected to a protracted character assassination campaign
instigated by Margaret Thatcher and ably executed by the media
and MI5. Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, revealed
in her memoirs that the counter-subversion branch targeted the
leadership of the NUM during the miners' strike because the union
was led by "a triumvirate who had declared that they were
using the strike to try and bring down the elected government
and it was actively supported by the Communist Party."
Allegations made by the Daily Mirror
(then owned by disgraced embezzler Robert Maxwell) and Carlton
Television's Cook Report that Scargill had taken cash from Colonel
Gaddaffi were instrumental in rubbishing Scargill's reputation
and reducing the miners' cause to rubble. Despite the fact that
Scargill's name was subsequently cleared, the fact remains that
Scargill's legacy will be to be remembered as the hardline cheerleader
of industrial insurrection that is the current common currency
of the government and media alike (the man largely responsible
for The Mirror's Scargill baiting, Roy Greenslade, finally issued
a half-baked apology to Scargill this year--that he couldn't
do it earlier is a question for his own conscience).
The Sun editorial of 14th November gave
the beleagured FBU leader even shorter shrift. For Gilchrist,
read Scargill:
IS the firemen's strike simply about
getting a hefty pay rise ...
Or is it really about politics?
That is the question they should be asking on the picket lines.
Do rank and file firemen agree with--or
even know about--the hard-Left views of their leaders?
FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist
proudly hangs a photo of the Marxist guerilla Che Guevara on
his office wall. He glorifies the union's rulebook which states
that its 'ultimate aim is the bringing about of the socialist
state system.' And he allows anti-British Iraqi propaganda to
be blazed across four pages of FireFighter, the union's official
magazine, after two officials pay a treacherous, backside-licking
visit to Saddam Hussein's dangerous dictatorship.
What the hell has the Cuban revolution,
Marxist-Leninist philosophy or 'the anti-Imperialist struggles
of the Iraqi workers' got to do with putting out fires? Not one
damned thing.
The firemen are being treated like pawns
in an old-fashioned class war.
Just like the doomed miners were by Marxist
Arthur Scargill.
Gilchrist and his far-Left cronies never
wanted this dispute settled.
They wanted a revolution.
How Che would have loved it ...
Gilchrist is most certainly as ambitious
as the next man, but the Sun seems intent on bestowing him with
powers quite possibly beyond the realms of his own imagination.
Revolution? Using tried and tested tactics, The Sun hangs the
FBU leader out to dry as a hard left militant with extremist
sympathies--an aberrant reminder of bloody minded union leaders
past. Lest we forget.
Tony Blair is similarly firm. "Tough
on strikes, tough on the causes of strikes" is the cry currently
emanating from Downing Street. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has
warned of the possibility of picket lines being breached by the
armed forces to get to fire engines. A new career in stand-up
comedy surely beckons for Fire Minister Nick Raynsford who quipped
"now's the time to have your house decorated"--an allusion
to firemen moonlighting in part-time jobs. Speaking on the BBC's
Breakfast with Frost programme (17/11/02), Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott--still remembered by some as one of the "tightly
knit group of politically motivated men" who blockaded Britain
in 1966's seaman's strike--called on the FBU to stop "pointing
a gun at my head." The popular and broadsheet press have,
almost without exception, repeated the government line and then
some.
A quick re-cap of the situation for those
of you who do not take the Sun.
British firemen are currently striking
for a £30,000 wage for wholetime professional firefighters
and emergency fire control staff. At present, professional firefighters
are paid £21,531 per annum--emergency fire control fighters
receive 92% of that rate. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is aggrieved
that firefighter pay is linked to a formula which was devised
in 1977--a result of the only other previous national fire service
strike. The FBU plans three eight-day strikes from 22-30 November,
4-12 December and 16-24 December. Further strike dates are possible
if the dispute remains unresolved after these dates.
The FBU refused to take part in an independent
fire service review led by Sir George Bain (former chairman of
the Low Pay Commission) because of New Labour influence: former
TUC president Sir Tony Young was only appointed to the panel--dubbed
Camelot by the FBU because of its top heavy peers of the realm
count--after government consultation.
The Bain inquiry took nine weeks to deliver
its interim findings and announced its results just 24 hours
before the called for 48 hour strike that began on the 13th November--this
despite the fact that Young had already told Gilchrist that "the
review team is not going to deliver what you want and the FBU
will have to accept that." True to Young's word, the interim
Report tabled an 11% pay rise over two years alongside "modernising"
working practices including beepers which would call firefighters
out from home.
According to the Sun, the strike "over
a whopping 40% pay claim" represents the "biggest union
challenge to a government since the heyday of maverick miners'
leader Arthur Scargill." In a rare sin of omission, The
Sun neglected to mention the fact that even if the FBU were to
win their full claim, it would still only mean an hourly rate
of around £8.50. Even the most battle hardened PFI attending
schoolkid knows the old maxim about lies, damned lies and statistics.
The allusions to Scargill come thick and fast--sometimes in the
least likeliest of quarters. Self proclaimed liberal commentators
like The Guardian's Polly Toynbee are likewise not above invoking
the ghosts of Britain's recent--and largely misrepresented--industrial
past as a reminder of the folly of industrial action.
Writing in the Guardian on 23rd October,
Toynbee had this to say about the threatened strike action:
"You've won the argument. Now get
back to work. Most strikes are unnecessary, but few are quite
as needless as this. The Fire Brigades union (FBU) is another
sorry story of decent people with a good claim badly led into
intoxication with the glory and heroism of a fight, seduced by
the old romance of braziers outside every fire station."
It is hard to see exactly how FBU members
were seduced by the "old romance of braziers" considering
that the call for an annual wage of £30,000 per year was
first made in April of this year; some 12,000 firefighters descended
on Trafalgar Square in June to march in support of their pay
claim; a proposed 4% pay rise was rejected in August; the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister blocked a tabled 16% increase made
by local authority employers in September; threatened 48 hour
strike action was called off twice in October and a proposed
eight-day walkout was postponed on November 4. Drunk on the glory
and heroism of a fight? If anything, the firemen's desire to
strike is to industrial action what the Band of Hope was to intemperance.
Nonetheless, the image of pot-bellied
Saddam sympathising snooker playing firemen with nothing better
to do than jeopardise national safety is, sadly, an enduring
one. The FBU's refusal to cooperate with the government appointed
and Bain led "independent review" leaves Toynbee in
no doubt of the intransigent and backward looking mindset currently
bedevilling the FBU membership:
"The real reason they baulk at joining
the review is their refusal to consider any change in fossilised
working practices, which show how unlike their working life is
to most modern workforces. They work the same rotas as when my
mother was in the fire service during the war: two nights (unlike
in the blitz, mostly asleep) and two days, with time for other
jobs. They are promised that no new changes to rotas will stop
them taking second jobs.
No wonder no one leaves the virtually
all-white, all-male service--scores of applicants queue for rare
vacancies. They refuse to train to carry defibrillators to save
more lives, refuse to be redeployed to areas where there are
the most fires. They are underpaid compared with the police,
but better paid than ambulance workers whose leaders roll their
eyes at the FBU's claim. The top rate for soldiers who will stand
in for them (possibly before heading off for Iraq) is £2,000
a year less. Firefighting is hazardous work--it is the 23rd most
dangerous occupation."
Do you remember the blitz? Thankfully,
Toynbee's mother is on hand to remind us. Professional modesty
naturally forbids Toynbee from disclosing the doubtless higher
ranking that newspaper columnist occupies in the dangerous occupation
stakes. "Andy Gilchrist's callow team of hard, white men
have made a terrible muck of it already" writes Peter Preston's
in Monday's Guardian ("Someone turn the heat off, please"
18/11/02).
Taking the baton and running with it,
Preston casts the striking fireworkers as unreconstructed machos
more in love with the trade unionism heritage past than present
political reality (This can't become one more myth in the musty
museum of strike myth-making"). Warming to his theme, he
adds, "it is a strike that should never have been allowed
to begin and ought, on reflection, to be teaching a new generation
of political and union leaders why talking is a damned sight
better than walking."
Refuting claims made by Deputy Prime
Minister and reformed trade unionist John Prescott that the government
had no agreement with the union on the availability of manpower
for major incidents, Gilchrist reiterated that the FBU agreed
to monitor the situation alongside the government:
"I must repeat that we have been
trying to negotiate a settlement to our claim since May. It is
not acceptable that the failure to provide adequate fire cover
for the public should be laid at our door. It is not acceptable
that contingency plans were still not finalized as late as 2.00pm
yesterday [12/11/02]--4 hours before our strike began. We have
been open and honest about our intentions in the event of a failure
to reach a negotiated settlement. We suspended industrial action
three times to try and reach a settlement. These people always
go the extra mile for the public. The men and women of the UK
fire service are devastated by these vindictive attacks upon
their integrity. They deserve far better."
Perhaps, but of course It had to happen.
No sooner had the strike begun, than the media fuse was lit under
the FBU for its actions. Britain's first national fire service
strike in a quarter of a century inevitably allowed the broadsheets
and tabloids to dust down the ghosts of militant fears past:
1979's Winter of Discontent, the Miners' Strike, Militant. Mendacious
appeals to patriotism and hysterical exposes of the threat posed
to the British way of life have long been the Sun's stock in
trade. These are all strategies which arguably reached their
zenith--or nadir--under the stewardship of "legendary"
Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie (responsible for a school of smear
journalism which reached an all-time low with the Sun's fictitious
accounts of the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster).
The drawing up of clear battle lines
between "them" and "us" goes some considerable
way to reinforcing normalised moral and political values; and
to the Great British public's recognition of the predetermined
and recurring cast of protagonists straight out of central casting.
Debate about the legitimacy or otherwise of the firemen's strike
is reduced to hysterical personal attack and character assassination.
The Sun is at least correct in saying
the firemen are being treated like pawns, but not pawns in "an
old-fashioned class war" as it would like to imagine, but
rather in New Labour's attempts to eradicate the "last spasm"
of the so-called hard left in the trade union movement.
Weasel worded attempts at positioning
the British public as hostages to fortune ("Our brave servicemen
proved last week they can do an admirable job" The Sun,
18/11/02) and Britain's firemen as guileless dupes in a political
game of brinkmanship masterminded by Saddam sympathising Marxists,
have as much ring of truth as the now discredited Scargill/Gaddaffi
connection. Mud, as the Sun's highly paid reporters know from
experience, sticks.
Press complicity in New Labour's attempt
at stifling future public sector disquiet by making an example
of the FBU is nothing less than shameful. But as Scargill will
testify, it was always ever thus. The plight of all British public
sector workers is tied up in the outcome of the current stand-off
between the government and the FBU: disingenuous press attempts
at moving the moral goalposts only serve to confirm this fact.
Blair senses a belated opportunity to
finally prove his mettle in the face of domestic militancy. The
firefighters might do well to take their cue from future Sun
editorials. The laddie's not for turning.
William McDougal
can be reached at: wmacdougall@msn.com
Yesterday's
Features
Paul de Rooij
Identity
Under Siege
William A. Cook
What Would
the Jews of Terezin Say?
Stephen B. Chapman
Did Bush
Blaspheme?
Behzad Yaghmaian
The US
Attack on Iraq:
The Casualties of the War
Linda Heard
Turkey Holds the Future of Cyrpus Hostage
David Vest
Have You
Been Centerized?
Pierre Tristam
America's Mythical Heartland
Lori Korte and Mike Leon
Madison Votes "NO" on Iraq War
Reza Ladjevardian
US Should Use "Soft Power"
to Engage Iran
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|