Not a witch hunt
Saturday 5th December 2009, 2:30PM GMT.
THE politician who instigated the tribunal of inquiry into the airport firefighters’ strike yesterday denied claims that it was no more than an expensive witch hunt.
Mary Lowe, whose successful requete brought about the inquiry, refuted the men’s suggestion that members were targeting those who intervened in May to barter the deal that led to the men returning to work.
They include Chief Minister Lyndon Trott.
‘The majority of States members were very clear that they wanted to have this tribunal of inquiry so lessons could be learned,’ said Deputy Lowe (pictured).
‘It would appear that mandates were broken or not complied with and the tribunal will establish whether that was the case or not.’
Firefighters said they had not been invited to attend the £250,000 tribunal and were being left out of the process.
Deputy Lowe said the opportunity to make submissions to the tribunal had been advertised in the La Gazette Officielle.
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I find it strange that a Tribunal of inquiry into the Airport Firemens strike felt that there was no need to invite them to make submissions to the tribunal. Interesting to find out who was invited to attend and make submissions, this would go some way in making clear what the real purpose of this tribunal is!
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Dave R,
There is no real purpose to this tribunal, its just an excuse to waste more time and money on what is essentially a ‘mud-slinging’ exercise, those involved would be better employed trying to reach a satisfactory conclusion to the pay and conditions of the Airport Fire Service employees, the clock is ticking and it would be no surprise to me if we had the same scenario again when the current cover agreement ends!
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Apart from the finance industry can anyone think of a good for Guernsey type of business that doesn`t need the import & export of expensive raw materials Something that will want to make people spend their money with us instead of elsewear.Specialist clinics could be one,any other idears ??
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Well, wasn’t that nice of LOWE to make sure our oppurtunity to make submissions was advertised in the La Gazette Officielle. I for one, who would of expected a direct invite to this pointless waste of tax payers money, does not take a copy of the paper so therefore would not have the luxury of responding to this accordingly.
Now as the cut off date was the 31st of November, I can inform the public that as a key member of the fire fighters talks, I recieved my formal invite to attend late on Friday 4th of December and a request with it to provide my statement and any relevant documents no later than the 9th. Well needless to say, this will not be happening and if this alone is not a a clear indication as to the sheer incompetence of our heirachy than I don’t know what is.
How could anyone reasonably expect and lets take into account that sat and sun was my first weekend off this year, to sit down and prepare a statement going back 4 years. Also to type up and sort out 4years worth of paperwork and to provide 5 copies in just 2 days!!!
Anyhow as I have just said we will not be attending this side of Christmas and depending on how we feel in the new year we may still decide not to attend. Lets face it they have never taken any notice of what we have had to say so far, so why would they start now.
One thing that I can guarentee is there will be alot more disruption!
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Geoff,you of all people knew that the tribunal was being formed. I would have thought that it was in all the fireman’s interests to partake and put their points over.You should have been right on top of the situation, not sitting back and waiting for an invitation. This is an independent tribunal, its you chance to have your say, but as a member of the public all i see is your Union chief and yourselves complaining about it. If you have a genuine case to put forward, get it in now and have it heard by this tribunal. Of course if your case is weak that’s another story altogether. I don’t like the expense any more than the next person, but this has to be cleared up once and for all and too many things get hidden away. This tribunal i hope will be transparent and open. Whilst i am on the subject, I also believe that anybody giving evidence who feels they need legal representation should be responsible for the costs of that representation. It certainly should not fall to the taxpayer.
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How on earth can a so called independant
tribunal investigating the firemans strike fail to invite the firemen who are at the heart of the dispute!!! It brings into question who is driving it? Others (still undisclosed) were invited to give submissions, so it remains to be seen how open and transparent the tribunal will be and also the final cost.
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Dave R
Your statement is completely right. If I was going to be summonsed to appear before the magistrate for an offence, I would expect to have a summons and not a notification in the press! I also fail to see how this will not turn into a he said this, he said that slanging match. There have been no minutes recorded throughout this whole sorry saga, despite our requests. This has led to us taking our own which can only be interpreted as our perception of the discussions. This basically means that every little bit of evidence will be deemed hearsay or inadmissable and would not stand in any court proceedings. After all no one is going to be held accountable and the guilty party have quit en masse anyway.
Gary
I am totally on top of the situation, the situation being the topic in hand which is very intense talks to ensure that this temporary period is resolved satisfactorily with no repercussions come May. We cannot and I repeat cannot afford to fail in delivering an agreement that will prevent anything like this occuring again. Belive it or not the last thing we want is to have our hand forced again into taking action against our will. This was a culmination of 4 years worth of banging our heads against the proverbial brick wall.
Now, unlike the states, we have our priorities in order not only by doing one thing properly at a time and getting it right (hopefully) but by not putting the cart before the horse. To expand on this we deem it more important to focus all our efforts in the little time left to sort out the issues around our contractual obligations. After that the time would be right to focus on how and why things went wrong. After all, the clock is ticking, and for all we know May will have come and gone and we could find ourselves setting up another tribunal to find out why this next set of negotiations has gone pear shaped.
As for trying to rush this through before Christmas then good luck to them. As I have already said we will not be attending and one of the main reasons is that we have numerous meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks in our own time to sort out the matter in hand. Also the hearings are all taking place during the working week to accomodate the suits and the public. This does not fit in to my schedule and hectic personal life and just because my 2 days off per week may be on a Wed or Thurs this does not mean that they are any less valuble then theirs. There is no respect or consideration for our personal time and with the period of notice that we were given its hardly surprising that its too short notice to compile 4 years worth of evidence. Lets not forget the suits are doing this all in their works time where as we have a job to do and would have to try and fit this in in the little spare time that we do have . I happen to be rostered on duty all over Christmas and the New Year which is nothing out of the ordinary for me so it would be a lot more convenient to hold the hearing when it involves our submissions on Christmas eve/day/Boxing day/new years eve/ new years day for instance. I somehow do not think they will agree to this and for that reason I’m out!
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Dave R,
I get the impression that the tribunal is more directed at investigating the way in which the States / PSRC dealt with the strike rather than the firemans actions, us taxpayers are footing the bill so our States members can have (another)little fight amongst themselves!
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Geoff
I am already beginning to see from your comments above why everything is in such a sorry mess. No independent minutes taken at meetings over this whole period of time, how can any official meetings be held without minutes, how can any process go forward if there are no official notes to build on? You as a group obviously know exactly what your problems were and those must be well documented.
The Tribunal, and here I am speaking purely as a member of the Guernsey public looking at it from the ouside, clearly states, that, the terms of reference shall be:
a) to inquire into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the industrial action taken by the Airport Fire Fighters at Guernsey Airport in May 2009, including the circumstances in which that industrial action was resolved.
b) to examine the actions and omissions of Departments and Committees of the States of Guernsey, relevent statutory bodies, other organisations and responsible individuals concerned in the dispute that led to the industrial action being undertaken and the steps that were taken to resolve it, with a view to identifying any lessons to be learned by the States of Guernsey.
c) to make such recommendations as may be considered appropriate.
d) To deliver its report on its findings to the presiding officer of the States of Deliberation as soon as practicable.
Now its only my opinion, but that appears a very good platform for you to present to a tribunal your case and why it was necessary, through sheer frustration to take the industrial action that you did. As I said before , if you have not got a good case then i can understand your prevarication in finding a reason why you should not give evidence.
I do agree with you that you should be given time to prepare your presentation for the Tribunal, but have you written to them and asked for a delay so as you can prepare.They must give you time or the tribunal becomes a mockery, but please stop making excuses and get stuck in and give evidence. If your case is good it will come out in the final summary and can only strengthen your arguments.
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Astounding news that no offical minutes were taken at these most important meetings! Is this normal procedure when States Departments hold similar meetings? I would have thought that minutes should be taken as a legal requirement when discussing such issues.
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Geoff, you are not doing yourself any favours by using the term “suits”. Or does your union wish to turn the whole episode into some sort of class war?
By not attending the tribunal (for whatever reason) you are going to further lose public support, because your side of the story will not be told. By all means bring it to the attention of the tribunal that no minutes were taken in meetings…..facts like that will only strengthen your position. But if you don’t attend, for reasons such as “we didn’t receive an invite”, the vast majority of the public will have you marked as behaving like spoilt kids and without any public support life could become very difficult.
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That’s outrageous, Nat. The firefighters were stuck behind procedures that they didn’t create, that were in place to exert the sort of undemocratic nonsense that we can now see. The rules were probably written by the duke of bloney normandie himself and have been sat on by the wigs ever since.
Whenever they try and speak up, either independently or through Unite, they get criticised for moaning. We should be supporting them break down these official barriers so they are left to get on with what they are trained to do. Not to act as minute takers, advocates and speech writers.
They have had the cahones to stand up to the arcane political process, when year on year they and all the other essential states workers have had a whole host of complicated work arounds to secure their employments, costing the tax payer and the transparent processes a great deal to achieve more disgruntlement, a higher chance of industrial action and an administrative mess.
The people in power have let this happen, not the politicians, but those advising them.
Tear down the hierarchy and start again. Rewrite the rules to put the checks and balances in. Stop all the squabbling. Blaming Geoff or any of the others (people love bashing Ron Le Cras – why?) stop calling them ‘babies’ and get the workers working and doing what they are paid (poorly) for. To help us, to help the finance industry survive – for instance.
The first thing that anyone does is start jumping up and shouting CLASS WAR COMMIES! it’s nothing of the sort.
If we want Guernsey to function as a working community then we must support the community, not the lawmakers. We can see the damage they are doing all around. It’s like a set of personal vendettas at various sections of society. You, Nat, have been going on about freedom of choice for the chem users, yet you say Geoff is going to lose public support for sticking up for him, his men, their dignity and all the other most important members of our society.
Support the firefighters, don’t criticise.
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Geoff. You said, “Lets not forget the suits are doing this all in their works time where as we have a job to do and would have to try and fit this in in the little spare time that we do have.”
Do you mean you’d have to try and fit it in between all the aircraft crash landings and fires?
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Geoff, looking at the gazette in the Press for the 11 December, some of your arguments do not hold water. The hearing is going on right through to the end of next February, so there was no excuse not just to put your application in, which would have given plenty time to prepare. Here are the dates below:
A Tribunal of Inquiry has been appointed by the Royal Court under the provisions of The Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Guernsey) Law, 1949, as amended, to inquire into the facts and circumstances leading up to and surrounding the industrial action taken by the Airport Firefighters at Guernsey Airport in May 2009, including the circumstances in which that industrial action was resolved.
Oral Hearings are scheduled to begin on Monday 14th December 2009 in the Carol Hindes Room at Les Cotils. The Inquiry will be held in public from between lOam and 1pm and 2pm.4.3Opm daily, with the first week closing at 1pm on Friday 18th December 2009. Provisional further dates in 2010 to continue hearing from those called by the Tribunal are as follows and persons affected will be notified of the arrangements for their appearance at the Inquiry in due course.
Monday 11th January 2010
Monday 18th — Thursday 21st January 2010 inc Monday 25th January 2010
Monday 1st — Friday 5th February 2010 inc Monday 8th – Tuesday 9th February
Wednesday 17th – Friday 19th February inc Monday 22nd -Thursday 25th February inc
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Steven
You mean like the GFSC have to do their job and get the corruption out of the island, understand accounting techniques, whilst hammering current account owners, small companies with arduous CDD?
Like the legal profession making it impssible for little old ladies to leave wills because their 90 year old accounts don’t have witnesses or paperwork, yet we can incorporate any old idiot that wants to use ‘sophistication’ for secrecy?
If a plane did crash land, wouldn’t you prefer the firefighters to have been busy training instead of having to learn how to negotiate with inherently biased and archaic mechanisms?
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Arnald
Firstly, I think the airport firemen have been treated unfairly and deserve more respect from their employers.
Secondly, Geoffs methods of argument doesn’t do them any favours, he should get as involved as much as he can with the tribunal.
Thirdly, I don’t fly. But looking on the bright side if a plane did crash and burn a high proportion of casualties would be banksters and lawyers.
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Steven
I know where you are coming from, I just think as firefighters they should concentrate on being prepared to save the bankers and lawyers that do so much for our way of life.
Geoff’s arguments are much the same as mine, in a way. Why should they have to prove what they did when they did not cause the situation. It’s been stated and accepted that the PSRC would not negotiate, despite the best efforts of Unite, who represent the workers.
The firefighters are prepared to save lives, not involve themselves with this bitchiness. If they are now being told to present a case, why wasn’t it in their job description and in the procedural handbook to have an independent witness at all management meetings? It’s called having trust in the state. They feel cheated, now an extra burden has been placed on people that have, no doubt, the skill to be able to, but who never advised they would have to perform such a duty.
I applaud the word ‘suits’ because this is exactly what it’s all about. The suits interfering with REAL WORK.
Of course I don’t disagree with you, except that Geoff is a firefighter talking about his job. His language is one of passion. If people don’t like it, then people don’t like firefighters. Simple as.
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No, Arnald, my comments were not outrageous and are pretty representative of what I believe to be the views of the majority of the public in Guernsey. It seems that most people have some varying levels of sympathy of the firemen, but this will soon be eroded if they behave like spolit brats. As for Ron le Cras, people give him a good bashing because he’s an 80′s throw back who just damages industrial relationships.
Geoff won’t lose public support if he sticks up for his men in the Tribunal. But he will if he refuses to attend. And he may also if he negatively refers to the tribunal panel as “suits”. There are a great many people who work on our island wearing a suit. It does not make them any less of a person who (in your terms) does “real work”. (And are you saying what the airport firemen do is proper manual labour?)
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