FAR be it from me, a mere teacher, to offer advice to our heroic firefighters. However, I must - take 4 per cent and run!
Keep your union intact and your heads down and pray that everyone will be so pleased no mention of “modernisation” will ever occur again.
I speak from within a profession that is just about modernised-out. Modernisation means being entered into a race, against friends and colleagues, in which the rules randomly change and in which you know the losers will be fed to the media sharks.
Modernisation means being given targets that, in firefighter terms, means you will need to light your own, extra fires, to ensure you meet your quotas.
No, take the 4 per cent and live happily on the breadline, or go the way of teachers - get truly modernised and live unhappily on the breadline. The choice is yours. Or, in modernisation speak, the choice is not yours.
Martin Hammond
51 Clovelly Road, Coventry
