National Pay Offer

[Magga110]

[BurtMacklin]

finally some good news, ballot! 

[Guest]

7% backdated to July 2022 and another 5% from July this year. Am I interpreting that correctly?

If so i think most people will take this to avoid striking, it shows good faith from the employers and is a huge win for the FBU.

Any say on where its coming from? I.e centrally/locally?

[Crog]

From comments I’ve seen, looks like it’s not funded. If that is the case, there will have to be draconian cuts in my service to afford it. We could just stretch to 3% before needing to cut.

[Rory-495]

If its not funded then that's a very different affair to the victory that the FBU seem to be portraying this as

 

[LFB92]

Has pay ever been primarily funded by central government? Or predominantly through council tax etc?

[TrainHardFightEasy]

Good news on the latest offer. Hopefully we accept it.

[Keith]

I'll be honest, wasn't expecting there to be any offer made and strike dates to be announced today. From watching other disputes the government won't even discuss pay for the nurses let alone make any offer, although the Scottish and Welsh government have and in others they reckon inflation has peaked and so are happy to sit it out.

That an offer has made that appears to be more than the 6% and 5% that London and Manchester had been offered separately through the NJC has to be a positive move, so will be interesting to see if the FBU executive council recommend it. 

[Rory-495]

I have a cynical feeling that we are being offered this to prevent yet another strike. If we take this and go away they can focus on nurses, paramedics rail etc.

[Carl]

Its never been centrally funded. The Government don't set what each FRS costs or gets paid, its up to the local councils to get the pot of money centrally and then pay for the services within that council. 

Granted, this is going to stretch some councils far more than others, but councils need to fight for money centrally to be able to run the services they have. They can't keep slicing the cake up and end up with the same size piece. 

Ballot will run from the 20th Feb to 6th March 2023 by the way

[Messyshaw]

Its good news that the strike may well be off, but is it a good deal?

I know one needs to compromise in all pay deals, but this remains effectively another pay cut against a circa 10% inflation rate. So all that rhetoric about catching up after 12 years of pay cuts and a pay rise to keep up with inflation seems to have been hot air

Or have I missed something???

[Carl]

I guess we will never make up for what's lost, especially in a world we now find ourselves in. Playing devils advocate, I guess the question from me would be, how would we be viewed if we didn't accept, and then went on strike having refused the offer of 12.5%? I can imagine the publics view. I think I lost over £3000 on the last strikes.

[Keith]

The last national strike ended with a 16% rise over 3 years, I can't remember what the rises per year were, but think that they were spread out over 4 pay rises, so comparing the 2 deals, it looks like the highest rise we will have seen in 20 years. Agreed it won't make up for what was lost over the years, but to do that we would have probably needed to ask for 40% again, which was never going to happen.

As to who actually pays for it, with everyone's budget under pressure, most people won't care if its local or central government, as long as you get the money in your pocket.

[TandA]

I can’t see us getting significantly more without taking significant amounts of industrial action, and to be honest probably not even then.  The two things I am trying to weigh up in my mind are whether we would win more in extra pay rise than we would lose in pay docked for strike action and what kind of cuts to stations / pumps would it require to fund a rise for what remains.  My current thinking is that I will vote to accept based on my gut feeling.

[Guest]

I'll take it, id suggest It'll buy us off until the next general election, after which you'd hope they'll negotiate a pay formula

[Desserts]

Being retired this is not my fight, but may I have an opinion?

I feel this offer is because of the 88% yes vote showing the strength of resolve of the FBU members.

I also wonder if they have made an offer to the FBU to get it accepted before strike action and then use this offer as a bench mark to settle the other pay disputes!

If this offer is not accepted and from the experience of the 2003 strikes I think serving FF will loose more strike money than they will gain in additional % over what is on the table and any more % will have strings attached which this offer does not.

I was against acceptance of the final offer in 2003, whether I'm just older, I doubt wiser but perhaps more realistic. I would accept this now!

[Keith]

FBU Executive Council has unanimously recommended the pay offer 

[Fridge03]

Take it now. Come back to fight another day if needed. 

If we rejected this no strings attached offer, I think any public sympathy would quickly disappear. In the grand scheme of things, it's more money in our pockets and pensions. Does anyone actually ever make back the money lost by striking (and of course, we'd all be on the pickets....not fiddling.....). 

[Percy]

As people have rightly pointed out - following massive financial impact on striking Ffs in 2002/3 when there was a push for ‘30k’, a 40% increase at the time no less, we settled for 16% over three years! After all that!!! Post Bane Report, that pay award came with huge amounts of strings attached under the ‘modernisation’ agenda.

This pay offer is ultimately nearly 12.5% which we will see completely settled in 4 months time, not years!… and with No Strings attached.

For me it is a no brainer.

[Silvah098]

A lot of of people in my branch are very concerned about accepting and holding for central funding. And to that I say you're on 32k a year it really shouldn't be up to you to fight that fight.

It's a fantastic offer all things considered. I for one was just expecting the same offer London had. The fight for more funding should be taken by the people who's responsibility it is to deal with funding in my eyes. I.E your employers.

I've heard rumours that the employers are shitting themselves because they haven't spent their resilience fund appropriately and if we did go out the doors it would shed light on this, but, let's not forget there are certain unions that have been out the doors for months now. I for one don't fancy that after receiving a no strings attached offer like this.

But hey, my opinion is worth diddly.

[OscarTango]

Could there be a means tested funding model for Brigades that don't have the wonga? I mean HMCIFRS have gone through everything with a fine tooth comb. 

Also not to sound like a broken record, but the sums we are also spending on co-repsonding here, which comes out our budget, might provide some wiggle room. Im not sure that's necessarily what I want but it is an enormous overhead any which way....

[Carl]

If you want to work out your pay increase figures, here is a handy calculator

[Guest]

I personally think the local agreement thing is irrelevant. We all blame the government for the cuts as its easy but it's CFO's who decide how they spend the money they're given by government. Many of them have opted to skrimp on grey book terms and staff pay for many years and instead decided to waste public money on political nonsense and vanity projects. Things that might look good politically but achieve absolutely nothing worthwhile in reality. Others have spent years squirriling money away for a rainy day and again some of these savings have been made at the expense of their staffs t&c's.

This local funding issue will force many of them to reassess their priorities and make sure they're spending the money on function and just reward for the people who actually get their hands dirty, people who for too long havent even made the top 10 list of considerations.

Many of them will be forced to actually consider staff, and made to pay them appropriately for the hard work they put in during austerity and the pandemic.... I.e deliver on their big talk over the last few years arguing we deserve fair pay.

Optimistic thinking again here but hopefully it might force some genuine reflection on what actually matters to the communities we serve and as bonus it might make CFO's and politicians see the value in having a well paid, well trained and politically motivated workforce. (Even more optimistic)

[Jet]

@PB86 unfortunately, paying staff and actually trying to increase morale doesn't win top level corporate jobs and the next Chief Exec position of a local service that comes up just as they retire.

But here's to hoping your predictions materialise.

[Rory-495]

96% voted to accept!