A slow burning flame? Organisational change and industrial relations in the fire service

Industrial Relations Journal 30:1ISSN 0019-8692

A slow burning flame?Organisational change andindustrial relations in the

fire service

Ian Fitzgerald and John Stirling

The process of organisational change in the public sector hasled to a restructuring of the employment relationship in a con-text of budgetary constraints, the introduction of performanceindicators and the development of new management stra-tegies. The pace of change has been uneven and mediated byservice cultures that have been resistant to innovation. Ourcase study of a metropolitan fire brigade explores these issuesand suggests that financially driven organisational changehas a major impact on industrial relations and that tradeunion organisation rooted in workplace culture can provide asignificant challenge to restructuring.

In the last two decades public sector organisations have been subject to a sustainedpressure for change and reorganisation that shows few signs of abating and therecan be little doubt that the motor of that change has been the severe financial restric-tions placed on public expenditure by central government. The key elements indelivering efficiency savings have been the creation of market competition, the estab-lishment of performance indicators, or a combination of both. As a response, publicsector managers have adopted strategies leading to a restructuring of their organis-ations and the service delivery they provide. In broad terms, the situation in thepublic sector is one in which financial cuts are delivered by performance indicatorsand processed through organisational restructuring. Colling has argued that, duringthe period of Conservative government, this has been accompanied by ‘the philosophi-cal objective of breaking union power bases’ (Colling 1995: 134) This provides a very clearframework for analysing change in our fire service case study which will show howeach of the key financial factors have been mediated, firstly, by an organisationalculture that has a strong commitment to its own versions of service quality andsecondly through a pre-existing industrial relations framework that established a

❒ Ian Fitzgerald is a Research Assistant in the Division of Government and Politics at the Universityof Northumbria. John Stirling is Principal Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the same Division.

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

46 Industrial Relations Journal

stable corporatist structure at both national and local level. It is the restrictive changeswe will identify in fire service funding that have directly challenged the corporatistrelationships between the trade union, fire service management and local authoritiesat local level and the Home Office and government at national level. The role of theFire Brigades Union (FBU) is central to our analysis of organisational change and,in this respect we will argue that it is more appropriate to characterise union activityin terms of ‘resilience’ (Fitzgerald et al 1996) rather than the much discussed renewal(Fosh 1993, Darlington 1998, Fairbrother 1996, Gall 1998) and that the relationshipwith membership militancy (Kelly 1996, Darlington 1998) is a complex one.

The case study researchThe case study organisation, Met Brigade, is part of a wider UK fire service dividedat a national level into three geographical regions, England and Wales, Scotland, andNorthern Ireland. The English fire service has two types of brigade, the metropolitanand shire brigades. Met Brigade is one of the seven brigades which retained theirmetropolitan organisation following the abolition of the Greater London Council andthe Metropolitan Authorities in 1986. On the 1st January 1998 it had a ‘uniformed’establishment of 1110 and a strength of 1083 staff in an overwhelmingly male labourforce dominated by operational personnel. These operational staff are organised in‘watches’ which provide the primary focus of organisational culture within the Brig-ade and, with it, the underpinning of trade union solidarity. All uniformed staffother than the senior executive officers are members of the FBU, giving the union amembership of 1078.

Our analysis locates Met Brigade within the context of the English fire service fromwhich we draw our statistical data. This is used to support a three year researchprogramme which included interviews with a sample of 32 members of staff rangingfrom firefighter to Chief Fire Officer; union officials and the Chair of the Fire andPublic Protection Committee. Participant observation on a ‘watch’ also took place andthis proved important for an understanding of workplace culture and its influence onthe wider organisation.

We begin with an analysis of the changing funding structure of the Service, followthis by showing how funding, performance indicators and restructuring are inter-related and conclude with our evaluation of the impact of these factors on industrialrelations and the significance of trade union organisation.

Funding the fire serviceThe four established sources of fire service funding are revenue grants obtainedthrough the Fire Standard Spending Assessment (FSSA) proportion of the revenuesupport grant, national non-domestic rates, the council tax and credit approvals forcapital expenditure (CIPFA 1996). The FSSA provides the Service with its largestsource of income and is derived from a formula related to levels of required firecover. As in the public sector as a whole, each of these sources of income have beenrestricted by the previous Conservative government’s commitment to reduce publicexpenditure, a policy strategy broadly continued by the present Labour government.

In 1994 the then Home Secretary stated that:

The Government has a clear policy on public expenditure. We believe that expenditure controlsare essential to promote national economic recovery and employment. The fire service, like otherpublic services, cannot stand apart from these controls. Nor do the facts seem to me to supportany suggestion that the fire service is underfunded (whilst recent) settlements were not as greatas those achieved in earlier years, they were all that could be afforded in the current climate.(Howard 1994: 1)

Labour have slightly increased funding but tied this to their Comprehensive Spend-ing Review and the concept of Best Value which, it is argued, is ‘. . . .not just abouteconomy and efficiency but also about the effectiveness and the quality of local ser-

Change in the fire service 47 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

vices’ (Home Office 1997: 3). This focuses attention in the fire service on the growingfinancial crisis and the consequential increase in pressure on service levels. In generalfunding for the fire service has been consistently reduced in real terms and FSSA hasfallen behind expenditure. In 1992/93 a gap of £10 million existed between centralgovernment funding and actual expenditure and by 1997/98 this had increased dra-matically to £125 million (Table 1). In a move to encourage increased private sectorfinancing through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), capital credit approvals havealso fallen with a substantial £30 million (52 percent) reduction between 1995 and1998.

As fire service expenditure only averages between three and four per cent of over-all local authority expenditure and there is often cross party political support forlocal brigades there has been a growing level of subsidy to ameliorate this financialproblem. In the shire brigades the FSSA is paid as part of an annual block grant whichincludes all local authority services thus allowing authorities to increase fundingat their discretion. For some brigades this situation has changed recently with theintroduction of combined fire authorities which have a far tighter financial regime.In contrast the metropolitan brigades, which are funded directly, do not have thesame financial flexibility and so they are left with three main policy options. Firstlythey can apply for a reassessment of the Government cap on their SSA. Secondlythey can borrow from their service-specific balances; for example, insurance or pen-sion reserves. This is an option which is also open to the shire brigades, although,because of stiff competition with other services for the available balances this hasproved of limited assistance. Thirdly, they can generate internal efficiency savings,an option again open to all brigades. The first two options have not provided longterm solutions to funding problems and so the latter has become the major focus ofattention. In 1995 the Audit Commission suggested that efficiency savings of up to£67 million could be made. This estimate focuses on two main areas, firstly £25million was related to reducing sickness and leave allowances in order to maintaincrewing levels with fewer staff and, secondly, £29 million was estimated to be avail-able through ‘slimming down management structures’ (Audit Commission 1995: 11).

Table 1: Difference between fire SSA and actual expenditure

48 Industrial Relations Journal Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

Both of these have significant industrial relations implications in terms of potentialjob loss, work reorganisation and challenges to local conditions of employment.

The Audit Commission’s figures were, though, controversial, with the then govern-ment concluding that they were of a ‘slow release’ variety (Blatch 1995: 8) and theLocal Authority Associations suggesting that ‘most of the reductions are of a shortterm nature’ (LAA 1996: 2.29). Furthermore, the Local Government Associations(LGA 1998: 2.4.4) argued that the figure was only £6–7 million and the Audit Com-mission itself finally concluded that ‘the level of realistic improvement opportunitiesis significantly less than the theoretical figure identified in the national report’ (LAA1996: 2.29). Given the limited potential of these savings; the level of service quality,which is dependent on the relationship between funding, efficiency and performance,has become the key issue. This, in turn, has challenged the corporatist industrialrelations framework which had evolved through a period of relative financial stab-ility.

Funding and performanceThe funding of the fire service is related to the fire risk category areas that individualbrigades cover (79 percent of the 1996/97 FSSA budget) and the response times andcrew numbers involved (Table 2). This is the major factor in deciding the number offire stations, appliances and establishment of each brigade.

At present the Service as a whole meets fire cover criteria over 90 percent of thetime (Audit Commission 1995) which is 15 percent more than the Home Officenational minimum requirements, in a period in which ‘overall, the Service isresponding to 55 per cent more incidents than ten years ago’ (ibid. 8). However, thisdid not deter the last government from reinforcing demands for efficiency savingsbased on conforming to the lower national minimum targets. In 1989 the then HomeSecretary whilst addressing Chief Fire Officers stated that:

I am aware there are a number of instances where fire authorities have been reluctant to takesteps to eliminate the over-provision of fire cover. I would urge you as Chief Fire Officers toaddress these issues objectively, knowing you will have the full support of Her Majesty’s Inspec-tors in seeking to eliminate over-provision of cover. (Labour Research 1990: 17)

Table 2: Fire cover criteria


The past government’s emphasis on financial restraint and ‘over provision’ has gen-erated considerable resistance from within the fire service which has focused aroundthree particular factors. Firstly, there is the perception within the fire service, sup-ported by a very positive public image, that there is already a high quality inherentin service delivery. In this context, meeting fire cover criteria ‘over 90 per cent of thetime’ rather than the minimum of 75 per cent is not generally regarded as ‘overprovision’. Secondly, there is the argument that change has indeed occurred, but thatit has reached its limits, as the debate over the Audit Commission’s recommended£67 million savings indicates. Thirdly, there is the view that ‘outsiders’ setting stan-dards challenge the professionalism of brigade management. Each of these points isclearly embedded in the following statement from the then President of the influen-tial Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association (CACFOA):

Our management has been notable in attracting praise from others for its commitment todelivering services which meet and exceed expectations for all three of the great ‘Es’ of the ninetiesculture – Economy, Effectiveness and Efficiency . . . .History may well recall that we are not inan age of reason but in a decade of statistics. Statistics which seek to strip naked the body ofa Service which is clothed in quality, reasoned managerial professional judgement and electedcouncillors’ local resolve . . . .The accountants and statisticians have the . . . .ability, if allowed tooperate in isolation, to replace managerial freedom and sensible professional decisions with non-sensical arguments devoid of any human face. Minimum standards of fire cover are quicklybecoming the maximum . . . .This nonsense is fast becoming a reality with people trying to meas-ure quality. (Davis 1995: 5)

There might be little difference between local councillors, senior fire officers and theunion on these three points but the principal formula that measures fire cover criteriais becoming increasingly controversial given that ‘over provision’ relates to the actualnumber of firefighters in a crew attending a fire. Currently, the number of crewrequired on the first appliance attending a fire is five and the national requirementis that this is met 75 per cent of the time. The possibility of running applianceswith reduced crewing levels was originally established to give brigades operationalflexibility but if, as suggested by Davis, ‘minimum standards . . . .are quickly becom-ing the maximum’ then there is a clear possibility of reductions in staffing levels. Atpresent these reductions have been obtained either through reorganising fire covercategories at a brigade level thus allowing a reduction in establishment or throughoperating below establishment levels (Table 3).

Currently, no compulsory redundancies have been made with settlements beingnegotiated, for example, by the non employment of new recruits. However, there isthe strong possibility of a national strike should compulsory redundancies occur asthe FBU has a conference based policy of national strike action if any are made.

This emphasis on finance and performance criteria that are less than the currentprovision in many brigades has inevitably led to a focus on savings in personnelbudgets as the Service spends in excess of 85 per cent of its total expenditure onlabour costs. This means that the funding crisis cannot be ameliorated through meansother than either a direct reduction in staffing levels or a tightening of wage relatedcosts including the sickness and leave entitlements that were discussed by the AuditCommission (1995). Inevitably, both these strategies lead to conflict with the FBUwhich jealously guards the pay formula reached after the 1977/8 strike as well asthe national and local conditions of service. Indeed, the attempts to remove thenational formula by the Conservative government were also resisted by theemployers, although they have increasingly adopted aggressive local strategies inattempting to reduce conditions of service. This has led to local disputes and indus-trial action at Met Brigade and elsewhere (for example, Liverpool 1997; Essex 1998;London 1998). At a national level this has been taken further with the recent issueof an official circular stating that, in line with the present Governments’ Best Valuepolicy there is an intention ‘to transfer all negotiations, with the exception of payand hours, from national to brigade level’ (Cameron 1998: 3), allowing ‘improved’local flexibility.


Table 3: Establishments and strengths in England and at Met Brigade 1992 to 1997

Restructuring at Met BrigadeThe restructuring at Met Brigade in response to these financial imperatives has beencomplex and there has only been a slow process of adaptation to what has beencalled ‘the new public management’ (Ferlie et al. 1996). The key feature of the changehas been the gradual shift in management organisation through delayering. At thesame time, the Brigade has sought to reorientate its management strategies to incor-porate elements of both business and quality management. However, there has beenlittle sign of the embracing of ‘new management techniques’ which has occurred inother parts of the public sector (Kirkpatrick and Martinez Lucio 1995). Furthermore,the change process has been strongly mediated through both the workplace cultureand the pre-existing industrial relations structures.

Met Brigade has been subject to the same financial restraints as the fire service asa whole and it is now reaching the end of any financial flexibility it may have had.The financing of the Brigade is ultimately the responsibility of a consortium of fivelocal authorities which have been largely sympathetic to the needs of the Service


and reluctant to reduce funding. As a consequence, the Brigade has been effectivelysupported through the use of reserves but, as the Chair of the Met Brigade Fire andPublic Protection Committee explained when discussing the 1997 budget: ‘this is thelast time we’ve been able to ameliorate the effects of a bad budget settlement. . . .Ifwe don’t get a decent settlement next year, it may well come down to compulsoryredundancies’. This argument was echoed by a Met Brigade senior officer during theperiod of office of the last Conservative government:

that’s the argument now, every time you go to the Home Office whinging about whatever, theyjust come back and say you’re not at minimum, you are funding all of these services that areabove minimum, get rid of some of them.

As we have suggested there are strong local feelings that exceeding national responsetargets is not necessarily equated with ‘over provision’. Nevertheless, with a recur-ring funding deficit the restructuring of Met Brigade was inevitable but it was totake place within an important historical context and be mediated by a corporatistindustrial relations structure and a workplace culture strongly influenced by firebrigade trade unionism.

The historical starting point for Met Brigade was its foundation in 1974 and twoparticularly significant factors from this period were to influence the developmentof organisational change. Firstly, the outcome of the original merger of brigades ledto a situation in which the new combined Service was regarded as ‘over officered’and, secondly, the FBU was generally able to secure the retention of the best localconditions of service. In this context, delayering necessarily became a major focusfor brigade reorganisation as did challenges to existing service conditions, with theresult that industrial relations issues have become increasingly confrontational.

The process of change commenced with the removal of two middle managementranks, the Assistant Divisional Officer and the Divisional Officer Grade One, whichled to a significant reduction in officer posts:

we reduced by 50 per cent the management structure in this brigade. . . .We’ve now streamlineddown to 38 officers, which really stretches it almost to the limits. . . .(However) in terms of day-to-day management and true business management we still have enough to go on (senior officer).

Organisationally the Brigade moved from three to two Divisions and establishedeight District Offices controlling between two and three fire stations each, with somedevolved responsibility but significant retention of authority at the level of Brigadeheadquarters. Alongside this delayering came some limited introduction of businessand quality management strategies both of which have generated significant levelsof resistance within the Service as a whole (Segers 1990; Linn 1992, FBU 1993). Thebusiness focus has been on shifting responsibility for budgets downwards, however,the extent of this has been limited and the perception of change is that real authoritystill rests with executive management and that much of the devolvement has beena ‘paper exercise’. This leaves staff in the operational Station Officer grade, who arekey figures in managing change (Stirling and Fitzgerald 1997), firmly lodged withinthe existing organisational culture within which the management decision makingprocess is mediated through the trade union:

I have no direct control over any money; all things are dictated by headquarters. We can onlyhave opinions on it and, if we disagree, oppose through our elected reps, our FBU representatives(Station Officer).

In the same way, there has been only a limited introduction of management qualityinitiatives and human resource management. This reluctance is partly in line withthe general perception we noted earlier of brigades already regarding themselves asdelivering a quality service, but there are also some influential chief fire officers(Robinson no date) arguing that total quality management (TQM), for example, isnot appropriate to the fire service. At Met Brigade these arguments are further influ-enced by both divergent views within management and the industrial relations impli-cations of change:


over the last two years even if we had wanted to put TQM into place, because of all the otherpressures that have come on, partially from a financial point of view and from an industrialrelations point of view it would have been very difficult to move in that area (executive officer).

We have now discussed the first of two key factors that were emphasised at theoutset in relation to Met Brigade. Financial constraints have been amelioratedthrough the use of reserves and some delayering. Changes in performance indicatorshave been accepted but there are clear indications from across the Brigade thatnational targets are regarded as minimums and that exceeding them is not necessarilyregarded as an indicator of over provision. This leaves the Brigade with the optionof efficiency gains through challenging staffing levels and conditions of service andinevitably confronting an entrenched industrial relations framework mediatedthrough strong trade union organisation.

The importance of industrial relationsIndustrial relations in the public sector up until the 1980s was marked by long estab-lished procedures and what Winchester describes as ‘harmony, stability and consensus’(Winchester 1983). He adds that although such a picture concealed some variationit remained ‘broadly accurate’ for the sector as a whole. This consensus occurred in apublic sector that was also characterised by relatively high trade union membershipdensities and entrenched systems of national collective bargaining (Beaumont 1992).However, change had already begun to occur from the end of the 1970s with whatLaffin (1989) describes as the development of ‘a new militancy’ which included theonly national strike in the fire service in 1977/8. He goes on to discuss a ‘crisis ofmanagement authority’ and an environment in which the ‘earlier relationship of corpor-atist harmony between public employers and employees is fading’ (ibid. 84). This corporatistharmony was decisively rejected by both the Conservative government and somepublic sector managers (Caple 1995 and Colling 1995) and severely challenged bypublic sector financial constraints. Furthermore, trade union power was regarded asa barrier to change and national collective agreements as distorting local labour mar-kets and undermining organisational flexibility. The restructuring of the public sectorand the introduction of market relationships that followed from this ‘new right’government ideology (Kirkpatrick and Martinez Lucio 1995) and the aforementioned‘crisis of management’ had significant implications for the established industrialrelations framework at both national and local level.

Industrial relations in the fire service was not uncharacteristic of the public sectoras a whole with its tripartite corporatism at local level between fire service manage-ment, local authority employers and the FBU. There was, perhaps, even greater likeli-hood of ‘corporatist harmony’ in a Service whose staff respond to highly dangerousand sometimes life threatening situations and have a great measure of public sym-pathy. Local councillors were also likely to be supportive of the Service and therewas the opportunity for close working relationships between Labour controlled LocalAuthorities and the FBU (Darlington 1996). Whilst this corporatism was broken downin the public sector as a whole with notable industrial unrest, a major factor in secur-ing a decade relatively free from major disputes in the fire service was the 1977/8national strike which was the defining point in establishing a framework for indus-trial relations in which a key focus for conflict, the annual pay negotiations, waseffectively neutralised. The strike settlement established a formula for future wageincreases which linked the pay of firefighters to the earnings of the upper quartileof male manual workers. However, it did not remove wage-related issues from thebargaining process and there remained room for negotiations beyond the nationalagreement (the ‘Grey Book’) at brigade level.

Given the importance of labour costs to the Service it is not surprising to find thesecollective bargaining arrangements under increasing pressure and industrial conflictemerging as the FBU defended existing conditions. In particular, previous Conserva-tive government policies on public sector pay restraint provided a severe challengeto maintaining the national formula, although agreements were eventually concluded


without national industrial action. Furthermore, the Audit Commission report rec-ommended a review of bargaining arrangements:

aiming to keep what is good about national agreements (for example, a clear statement ofemployees’ entitlement on fundamental issues such as pay, leave and rights at work) while remov-ing what is bad (excessive scope and detail, and obstructions to flexibility in fire cover andoperations). (Audit Commission 1995: 21)

It is significant that the Commission did not recommend the wholesale shift to localbargaining that is common in the private sector (Millward et al. 1992) or that wasencouraged by the last Conservative government in the public sector (Beaumont1992). However, as noted earlier, recent developments (Cameron 1998) and a morepositive approach from CACFOA (Best 1997) to the present government’s attemptsto control and reorganise public sector financing through a Best Value redefinitionof service level quality (Home Office 1997), would suggest a breakdown of this con-sensus and the beginnings of a new realignment between management, employers,government and the FBU. Notwithstanding this, any national consensus on payalways concealed more complex local bargaining arrangements. For example, theAudit Commission’s reference to ‘excessive scope and detail’, is compounded bysupplementary enhanced local agreements which are viewed very differently by theFBU. Equally, the reference to ‘obstructions to flexibility’ returns us to our earlierdiscussion of performance indicators and reductions in crewing levels.

These national developments have again found their expression at Met Brigade,with the shift in the ‘corporatist’ approach graphically described by an FBUregional official:

historically Chief Fire Officers and particularly the Chief Fire Officer of (Met Brigade) have alwaysactively sought to maintain the conditions of the uniform members and wherever possibleimprove them. For the last three or four years the senior uniform officers have actively beenseeking to attack conditions of service.

This decline in ‘corporatist harmony’ is also illustrated in the three way relationshipbetween the Labour controlled Local Authorities, the FBU and the Brigade’s seniormanagement. There can be no doubt that the FBU had been able to utilise LabourParty links in the past as a mechanism for challenging management decision making.However, the increasing financial constraints on the Service and the consequentialchallenges to local conditions put a severe strain on this relationship (Stirling andFitzgerald 1997). Darlington (1996) has described a similar restructuring of relation-ships in the Merseyside Fire Brigade and an increasing number of disputes over localconditions. At Met Brigade, each of the parties in the relationship is aware of thegrowing separation between the union and the local authorities and it is clear thatthere is increasing autonomy for the Chief Officers of the Brigade to manage withoutsignificant political challenges.

However the ability of the local authority employers and fire service managers tosecure change is dependant on the relationship they have with the FBU and in orderto assess this we need to explore the particular nature of fire service trade unionism.

Fire service trade unionismAs we have noted, high densities of trade union membership are a feature of publicsector employment and, reviewing the impact of competitive tendering on publicsector trade unionism, Colling (1995) argues that in spite of ‘a battery of policy andmanagerial innovations’ evidence for the abandonment of public sector trade union-ism is ‘scarce and equivocal’. Fire service trade unionism for uniformed personnelis equally well established and, despite fluctuations, it has continued to expand in aperiod of general decline for trade union membership (Table 4).

The FBU, founded in 1918, was firmly established in 1948 (Bailey 1992) when thenational negotiating body, the National Joint Council (NJC), was created. In 1997membership had reached its highest point at 39,835 with a density of 86 per cent.


Table 4: FBU membership in England 1977–1997

This was an impressive expansion of 25 per cent since 1977 as against a 3 per centdecline in Service strength for the same period. Kelly (1996) has contrasted thisgrowth in what he describes as a ‘militant left wing union’ with that of unionsdeveloping ‘partnership’ models. However, the relationship between militancy andmembership growth is complex, particularly as we would suggest that the FBU hasgenerally adopted a corporatist model and note that union density was at its lowestin two decades immediately following the national strike in 1978. Darlington (1998)develops a similar argument linking industrial action more closely with the work-place and political activity. However, this relationship is by no means clear cut asFBU membership in Merseyside (the subject of Darlington’s study) has been unevenand actually declined significantly in 1985 as membership was growing elsewhere.Nevertheless, density in Merseyside has remained high and Darlington’s argumentwould appear to be supported as he notes that the Union campaigned to save 88posts in 1986 and that the strength of the brigade has declined by only four posts(or 0.2 per cent) in the decade since. In contrast, Met Brigade lost 47 posts over thesame period (a decline of four per cent). However it would be dangerous to drawsignificant conclusions from such limited evidence of change or to establish a directcausal relationship without more detailed research evidence and a review of ‘mili-tant’ campaigns elsewhere in the country.

In reality, corporatism has only been abandoned under the pressure of financialrestructuring and more significant features of membership retention and growthrelate to the union’s single industry status, recruitment across staffing grades, expan-sion in the shire counties (26 per cent increase between 1977 and 1997) andembededness in workplace organisational culture. Even senior officers who are notnow FBU members will have served as active firefighters and been in the unionduring that period of their working life. In these respects participation in the FBUis part of the shared experience of being a firefighter. There have been some limitedalternatives to the FBU and there have been occasions of bitter inter union conflictin the Service (Swabe and Price 1983). The National Association of Fire Officers wasfounded in 1942 to represent Station Officers and above; the Retained Firefighters


Union was established in 1976 to represent part time staff, particularly from the shirecounties and the tiny British Fire Service Federation was established in 1976. Noneof these organisations have challenged the dominance of the FBU but they do rep-resent some of the sectional interests in the Service particularly in relation to thelevel of middle management and above and to the retained firefighters who haveother employment outside of the fire service.

The FBU now provides the only employee representation below senior officer levelon the NJC. Prior to 1996 the National Association of Fire Officers (NAFO) sectionof the AEEU also provided representation, however, after a membership survey(Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler 1995) covering the two unions NAFO failed toprovide membership data and consequently lost national recognition. There are sep-arate negotiations for senior managers who are represented by the Association ofPrincipal Fire Officers which emerged when CACFOA took on corporate status anddivided its professional and bargaining functions (Segers 1990).

FBU membership levels are high at Met Brigade (Table 5) and there is considerableworkplace involvement in the union which is centred around individual watches.The watch is essentially the job, as personnel rely on each other at incidents whenteamwork is of paramount importance. Between these periods of frantic activity moreinformal working relationships take hold, for example watches have their own infor-mal methods of working where different ranks (Station Officer, Sub Officer, LeadingFirefighter and firefighter) are on first name terms with horseplay and banter anintegral part of working life. This, along with the long stints of duty over shortperiods, lends itself to strong trade unionism and the opportunity for high levels ofinformal participation as discussion over union issues can continue on the watchthrough periods of inactivity. Commenting on the reason for FBU strength at MetBrigade one official said

Table 5: FBU Membership in Met Brigade 1978–1997


I think its the insular sense of the watch, you’ve got a union activist on that watch and he hasthe ears (of the members) and therefore our message is easier to get over. Its something they’vebeen talking about at the tea table, they live together.

This culture of workplace trade unionism is the key to understanding how manage-ment attempts to implement budget reductions or performance indicators aremediated and controlled. The power of the FBU does not simply reside in its numeri-cal and organisational strength, nor does the membership rely on the leadership ofparticular activists (Darlington 1996). Rather, our case study evidence from Met Brig-ade suggests that the trade unionism of the FBU is rooted in the ‘watch’ whichfocuses on the necessity for loyalty and teamworking which is translated into a con-sciousness of the importance of the collective. The legitimacy of that collective actionis generally accepted by a management that has been or remains a part of it, althoughthere are examples of challenges to this elsewhere in the fire service (Segers 1990and Darlington 1996) and in other emergency services (Stirling and Fitzgerald 1997).

Nevertheless, fire service trade unionism is confronted by challenges to its organis-ation on two main levels. Firstly, although the national pay formula is likely toremain even if in a revised format, there is clear evidence that local conditions ofservice are subject to aggressive challenges from management. Segars (1990) arguesthat fire service management nationally ‘is making greater efforts to co-ordinate boththe issues they raise with the union at local level and the approach they take’ andthis view is supported by our evidence from the FBU at Met Brigade. Secondly, therehas been some introduction of human resource management strategies that havefocused on direct communication with firefighters (Table 6)

There has been strictly limited success for each of these strategies at Met Brigade.In relation to terms and conditions of employment, there has certainly been someerosion locally but each development has been strongly resisted by the FBU andthere have been heightened threats of the sort of industrial conflict that has emerged

Table 6: Introduction of new management strategies


piecemeal in other brigades. The attempts at direct communication have founderedon the inherent collectivism of the watch and, as a senior fire officer at Met Brigadenoted, ‘the most powerful and believed source of information is the FBU’.

Finally, the co-ordination of management strategies has been matched by the ‘net-working’ of FBU representatives through, amongst other things, the use of new tech-nology and electronic communication systems.

Conclusion

We have argued that there are major pressures for organisational change in both theEnglish fire service as a whole and in our case study of Met Brigade and that theyderive largely from external funding pressures translated through performance indi-cators into organisational restructuring. However, the response has been a complexone which is circumscribed by the relationships between fire brigades and their localauthority employers; shared understandings of quality which do not fit easily withexternally generated performance indicators and a culture of solidarity which under-pins strong trade union organisation. In such a context, ‘efficiency savings’ are oftenreluctantly pursued by managers and inevitably have industrial relations impli-cations which lead to conflict with the FBU. Some of these features are not uncommonin other areas of the public sector such as personal social services or the NationalHealth Service where organisational change may also be mediated through pro-fessional associations rather than trade unions (Morgan and Potter 1995).

Fairbrother has argued that this restructuring of the State sector offers opport-unities for unions to ‘renew’ as management becomes more decentralised and unionmembers become disillusioned with national bargaining and take ‘tentative steps togenerate more participative and active forms of unionism’ (Fairbrother 1996: 141).We would argue that trade unionism in Met Brigade, and almost certainly acrossthe full time fire service, has always been characterised by a high level of informalparticipation at the workplace and there has not been significant disillusionment withnational bargaining. This, is partly a reflection of the unique status of the nationalagreement but also of the local corporatism which was a source of considerablestrength to the FBU: in the words of one senior fire officer at Met Brigade, ‘the FBUneeds to be maintained because we don’t want the chaos’. Such an approach, though,reflects a consensus that is being increasingly challenged as relationships betweenLocal Authority employers, senior managers and the FBU shift in response to theexternal funding pressures. The old local corporatism is being tested to breakingpoint as Local Authority councillors rely on Brigade management’s to develop andintroduce cost reduction strategies which bring inevitable conflict with the union.New models of trade unionism based on ‘Partnership’ (Ackers and Payne 1998) areentirely inappropriate in an environment previously characterised by a corporatistpartnership that is no longer credible when one of the ‘partners’ is directly attackinglocal agreements on terms and conditions. Neither would we suggest that heightenedlevels of conflict derive from the FBU’s status as a ‘militant left wing union’ as Kelly(1996: 92) suggests nor because of the influence of local left wing activists (Darlington1996). None of the current arguments regarding union renewal whether it be throughincreased participation, the recognition of individualism, or new models of partner-ship (Heery et al. 1998) sit easily with our analysis of Met Brigade. Rather, the actionof the FBU can be characterised by a resilient, conservative, defensive militancy builton a culture of collectivism that supports trade unionism and is resistant to changesthat challenge either service provision or conditions of service.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Phillipa Clark and her colleagues at the FBU for their assistancewith membership data and Ken Watkins of Her Majesty’s Fire Service Inspectorate.


References

Ackers, P. and J. Payne (1998) British Trade Unions and Social Partnership : Rhetoric, realityand Strategy, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 9, 3, 529–550.

Audit Commission (1995) In the Line of Fire, (London: HMSO).Bailey, V. (1992) Forged in Fire: The History of the Fire Brigades Union, (London: Lawrence and

Wishart).Beaumont, P. (1992) Public Sector Industrial Relations, (London: Routledge).Best, A. (1997) CACFOA Presidential Address, Fire ’97 Conference.Blatch, Baroness (1995) Speech, Fire ’95 Annual Conference.Cameron, K. (1998) ‘Divide and Rule – The New Threat’, Firefighter, 26, 6, 3.Caple, L. (1995) The Benefits of Local Pay Bargaining, (Northumbria Ambulance Service).CIPFA (1996) Fire Service Statistical Profile, (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and

Accountancy).Colling, T. (1995) ‘Renewal or Rigor Mortis? Union Responses to Contracting in Local Govern-

ment’, Industrial Relations Journal, 26, 2, 134–145.Darlington, R. (1996) Restructuring and Workplace Unionism in the Merseyside Fire Brigade, paper

presented to the British Universities Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference,Bradford.

Darlington, R. (1998) ‘Workplace union resilience in the Merseyside Fire Brigade’, IndustrialRelations Journal, 29, 1, 58–73.

Davis, D. (1995) Presidential Speech, Fire ’95 Annual Conference.Fairbrother, P. (1996) ‘Workplace Trade Unionism in the State Sector’, in P. Ackers, C. Smith,

and P. Smith (eds.), The new Workplace and Trade Unionism, (London: Routledge).FBU (1978 – 1998) Executive Council’s Annual Reports, (Fire Brigades Union).FBU (1993) New Management Initiatives in the Fire Service, (Fire Brigades Union Region Three).Ferlie, E., A. Pettigrew, L. Ashburner, and A. Fitzgerald (1996) The New Public Management in

Action, (Oxford University Press).Fosh, P. (1993) ‘Membership Participation in Workplace Unionism: The Possibility of Union

Renewal’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 31, 4, 577–592.Fitzgerald, I., A. Rainnie, and J. Stirling (1996) ‘Coming to Terms with Quality: Unison and the

Restructuring of Local Government’, Capital and Class, 59, 103–134.Gall, G. (1998) ‘The Prospects for Workplace Trade Unionism: Evaluating Fairbrother’s Union

Renewal Thesis’, Capital and Class, 66, 149–156.Heery, E., R. Delbridge, M. Simms, J. Salmon, D. Simpson and P. Stewart (1998) It’s Not a Recruit-

ment Drive%It’s The Rest of Your Life: New Union organising in the United Kingdom, paperpresented to the UCLEA/AFL-CIO Education Conference, San Jose, USA.

HMI (1991/92 – 1997/98) Reports of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire Services for England andWales, (HMSO).

Home Office (1997) Working Together – An Examination of Some Options for Collaboration and Re-Organisation in the Fire Service, (HMSO).

Howard, M. (1994) Speech, Fire ’94 Annual Conference.Kelly, J. (1996) ‘Union Militancy and Social Partnership’, in P. Ackers, C. Smith, and P. Smith,

(eds.), The new Workplace and Trade Unionism, (London: Routledge).Kirkpatrick, I. and M. Martinez Lucio (eds.) (1995) The Politics of Quality in the Public Sector,

(London: Routledge).Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (1995) Fire Brigades National Employers Circular, EMP/8/95.LAA (1996) Forecast of the Required Expenditure to Maintain the Present Level of Fire Service in

1997/98, (Local Authority Associations).Labour Research (1990) ‘Tories Fiddle as Britain Burns’, Labour Research, June 1990.Laffin, M. (1989) Managing Under Pressure: Industrial Relations in Local Government, (London:

Macmillan).LGA (1998) Home Office Services Expenditure Forecasting Group for Fire – Expenditure Forecasts 1998–

1999 to 2001–2002, (Local Government Association).Linn, I. (1992) New Management Initiatives in the Fire Service: A Report for the Fire Brigades Union,

(Barnsley: Northern College).Millward, N., M. Stevens, D. Smart and W. Hawes (1992) Workplace Industrial Relations in Tran-

sition, (Dartmouth).Morgan, P. and C. Potter (1995) ‘Professional Cultures and Paradigms in Quality Health Care’,

in I. Kirkpatrick and M. Martinez Lucio (eds.), The Politics of Quality in the Public Sector,(London: Routledge).

Robinson, B. (no date), Towards the Next Century: A New Way Forward, (London Fire and CivilDefence Authority).


Segers, T. (1990) ‘Industrial Relations Developments in the Fire Service’, The Industrial Tutor,Vol. 5, 1, 77–82.

Stirling, J. and I. Fitzgerald (1997) All or Nothing: The Employment Relationship in the EmergencyServices, paper presented to the British Universities Industrial Relations Association AnnualConference, Bath.

Swabe, A. and P. Price (1983) Multi-unionism in the Fire Service, Industrial Relations Journal, 14, 4,56–59.

Winchester, D. (1983) ‘Industrial Relations in the Public Sector’, in G. Bain (ed.), IndustrialRelations in Britain, (London: Blackwell).


A slow burning flame? Organisational change and industrial relations in the fire service

Documents