Hanging In The Balance: Public Support For The Fire Strike

Normally, when we discuss public services and their political impact, the Fire Brigade is not one of the services that immediately springs to mind - the NHS, education, the police, these are persistently debated and most of the public have frequent contact with them. When members of the People's Panel were asked earlier this year "Which four or five services on this card are the most important to you and members of your household?", only 28% picked the Fire Service, putting it in fifth place, well behind GPs (75%) and NHS hospitals (53%), though a little ahead of ambulance services (22%).

That, of course, is not because the fire service (or ambulances) are not thought to be very important, just that we don't need to call on them very often. When we do need them, we need them fast and we need them to be good at their job. (In an earlier People's Panel survey, in Spring 2000, 93% of the public thought being able to respond to 999 calls within ten minutes was one of the most important requirements for the Fire Service.)

Generally, the public has confidence that those standards are indeed met, even if by comparison with some other public services the brigade is out of sight, out of mind. Satisfaction with the quality of the fire service is high; indeed, in a MORI survey for the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in August, just 1% said they were "fairly dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with the performance of the Fire Brigade; there have been similarly impressive satisfaction findings in the People's Panel research over the years.

At the moment, though, the fire fighters are certainly in people's minds, as the first of a promised series of national strikes takes place. This dispute has been brewing for months, of course, and during that period MORI has conducted two surveys of public opinion, for the FBU in August, and for ITV1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald towards the end of last month.

Three weeks ago, most of the public supported the FBU pay claim. Half (51%) of the public picked fire fighters from a list of public service workers as one of the groups most deserving a pay rise, behind only nurses (who scored 67%). More than half, 56%, said they supported the FBU's campaign to bring fire fighters' salaries up to 16330,000, even though the question was careful to remind respondents that this amounts to a 40% increase.

There is no great surprise here. There is always considerable public support for the idea that workers in key public services should be better paid, in principle at least; but this always goes hand-in-hand with a doubt that the public will be quite so enthusiastic when the money to be meet pay claims is taken out of their pockets through taxes. Much of the discussion of the present government's increases in public services spending, announced in this year's budgets, has centred round the fear that the public's support for the increases will melt away if they are swallowed up in pay increases rather than taking on extra staff, buying extra equipment or building more hospitals. In fact, in a survey we conducted for the GMB last year, considerably more of the public felt that improving pay and conditions for public sector workers was likeliest to improve public services than thought either new investment or employing extra staff was the answer, so that fear may be misplaced.

Q The next few questions relate to public services. By public services, I mean the range of services provided by central or local government - for example, the NHS hospitals, schools and colleges, social services and refuse collection. Here are a number of suggestions that have been made as to how the government could improve public services. At the present time, which one or two of these, do you think would be most likely to lead to significant improvements to public services?

Source: MORI/GMB Base: 2,110 British 15+, 5-9 July 2001

But support for the pay claim is not, of course, the same as support for a strike to achieve it. Just under half the public, 47% supported the idea of a strike in the MORI/FBU poll in August, and there had been no movement by October: ICM for the Guardian on 25-27 October, using a general question ("From what you have seen or heard, do you think the strike action by the fire-fighters is justified or unjustified?"), found public opinion evenly split, 47% feeling it was justified and 41% not.

But these questions which talk generally of a strike but make no mention of specific details do not really get to the heart of the matter. MORI's survey for ITV on 23 October, a couple of days before ICM's poll, was able to go into the issue in more depth, disentangling some of the strands from it. The key factor emerges when we put the question in terms of emergency cover: 65% said that they would support a strike so long as fire fighters still responded to emergency calls, but only 19% would support it if they did not, whereas 74% would oppose it (and 56% strongly oppose it). Since the strikers are not responding to emergency calls (although they have stated they will make an exception in the case of any terrorist attack), we have to assume that the current strike will engender very considerable resentment.

The biggest differences in attitudes to the strike were age related - support was much higher among the young and middle-aged than among those aged 55 and over. For example, three weeks ago 21% of 18-34 year olds and 22% of 35-54 year olds said they would support a strike with no emergency cover, but only 14% of the 55+ group would do so. The gap is even wider when the issue was a strike during which emergency cover was maintained: 73% of 18-34 year olds and 68% of 35-54 year olds but only 56% of 55-and-overs said they would back a strike in those circumstances.

Incidentally, this age difference does not seem to be related to memories of the last strike in the late 1970s. The MORI/FBU poll in August found a similar age pattern in potential support for a strike, but having a larger sample size we can split the age categories more finely, and we find that the 45-54 year olds (all old enough to remember the last strike as adults) were in line with their younger counterparts; it was the 55-and-overs who are distinctive. That would suggest that the main issue may be the practical one of security rather than any more political factors - older citizens feel more at risk without the Fire Brigade to protect them; and clearly this relates not only to emergency cover but to the more "routine" tasks as well, since the age differential is wider not narrower with emergency cover maintained.

There are, naturally, widespread fears of the safety consequences of a strike. Only 16% of the public felt "a great deal" of confidence in the army's ability to cover for the fire fighters, though another 50% had "a fair amount of confidence". Intriguingly, it was the 55+ age group, most opposed to the strike and apparently fearful of its consequences, who had fractionally higher confidence in the army's abilities than did the rest; public sector workers had least (only 59% a great deal or fair amount of confidence, compared to 66% among the public as a whole).

It seems clear, too, that most of the public is not very tolerant of industrial action that will cause inconvenience in their daily lives. While 50% said they would still support the strike if it led to cinemas and theatres being closed for safety reasons, and 51% if it had a similar effect on sporting events, support fell to 39% if railway and tube stations had to be closed, 36% if schools were closed and just 28% if the result were the closure of power stations.

It is telling that in attitudes to a strike causing closure of cinemas and theatres or sporting events, the pattern of answers by age remained the same, with the 55+ age group much less likely to be supportive. Since attendances at all these forms of entertainment are highest among the younger generations, it is those least likely to be inconvenienced by the strikes who were most opposed to them. This suggests that the public's support for the principle of the pay claim is such that many may be prepared to accept some personal inconvenience and disruption to their leisure activities; but disruption to the other core public services they rely on is a different matter.

There is, of course, another issue that the government has to take into account - the fire fighters' pay claim cannot be viewed in isolation. The vast majority of the public, 86%, agreed that a 40% rise for the fire fighters will encourage other public sector workers to make similar demands; the government's difficulty is that this doesn't seem to be weakening public support for the pay claim.

And the other public sector workers themselves? Support for the fire fighters' pay claim was a little higher (64%) among public sector workers than among all adults, as was support for a strike so long as emergency cover is maintained (66% among the public as a whole but 76% among public sector workers). However, if the strike were to be (as it is) with no commitment to respond to emergency calls, public sector support is as low as is support from the rest of the country. This puts the strikers in a difficult position, as the support of workers in other public services would be a vital asset to them.

These figures are now three weeks old. Public opinion may have shifted, but it is unlikely to be in favour of the strike. Indeed, since the poll was conducted before the Bain inquiry recommended an 11% phased pay rise, which the fire fighters have rejected, there may have been a further swing against them since then. If the strikes continue, and especially if there are deaths as a result, we may not find quite such exemplary figures next time we measure satisfaction with the fire service, nor, perhaps, such widespread support for a pay rise for fire fighters.