written by then Home Office minister George Howarth the venomous hatred of New Labour for trade unions is unmistakeable. He declares "full support" for the employers seeking to undermine the "outmoded and unjustified" conditions won by the fire fighters. And - having endorsed the confronational approach of the fire authority bosses - he goes on to castigate the very notion of strike action as a "relic of an old and discredited confrontational approach to industrial relations". It is clear that the government is considering gping well beyond the full-scale military scabbing operation organised by the Callaghan government to make strike action by firefighters illegal. deliberately holding back the looming confrontation over the pay agreement until additional troops could be brought back from Kosova to carry out a re-run of the 1977 strikebraking exercise.
However the aged "green goddess" fire appliances are in desperately short supply.
As New Labour sticks the boot into ever wider layers of its core trade union support, the fear among union leaders must be the possibility of a re-run of the "winter of discontent" of 1978-79.
Millions of public sector workers finally lost their rag with a Labour government which had slashed back their living standards. Despite the present low tempo of class struggle, it could happen again.