TWO STRIKING firefighters were hospitalised last night after strikebreakers or ‘scabs’ ran them over, one with a car, the other with a fire engine.
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Police have arrested two drivers linked to the two separate incidents, the first in Croydon yesterday afternoon, the second in Southwark last night.
In the first, a car driven by Fire Brigade management appears to have raced into a group of pickets, injuring two strikers who were on picket duty at the time. One of them, Tamer Ozdemir, was rushed to St George’s Hosipital with suspected pelvic damage; the other had minor injuries which did not require hospital treatment.
“The car accelerated suddenly and one of the striking firefighters was thrown up and into the windscreen,” said Mick Shaw, president of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and a witness to the incident.
Strikers also accused strikebreakers of failing to help the injured men.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said striking firefighter Mick Andrews.
“I asked for a blanket because someone had been run over and was completely blanked.”
Later a similar incident took place at Southwark fire station when picket Ian Leahair was hit by a fire engine and taken to hospital with suspected broken ribs. A second striker suffered minor injuries.
Firefighters are in dispute with the Fire Brigade over plans to change to a 12 hour shift pattern that union members say would seriously threaten their home lives.
“The shifts are already disruptive to family life,” said Matt Wrack, general secretary of the FBU.
“People who work shifts their whole career give up their weekends, their Christmases, their children’s birthdays. That’s part of the job and we accept that, but there are limits to what people can accept.”
The FBU is also unhappy with management threats to sack all firefighters who do not sign up to the new shift patterns by the end of this month.
If talks fail to bring about a resolution to the dispute, a second strike is pencilled in for Bonfire Night on 5 November, traditionally one of the firefighters’ busiest nights of the year.
