When Firemen Stop Fighting

Ultimate sidewalk supers

In 2 a.m. darkness, a fire alarm clanged alive at the barracks of Britain's Grenadier Guards in the Chelsea section of London. Guardsmen scrambled aboard two old-fashioned civil defense fire trucks and sped toward a blaze reported out of control in the student quarters of King's College Hospital Medical School. When the troops arrived 15 minutes later, after taking one wrong turn, their low-pressure pumps failed to hose water as high as the third floor; flames were already licking at the roof. Worse, ladders extended only to the second floor. Finally deciding to fight the blaze from above, the soldiers climbed to the roof and managed to extinguish the flames after a 90-minute battle. Said an experienced fireman disgustedly watching the amateurish operation: "We could have done it in ten minutes."

Perhaps. But in Britain last week, firemen were the ultimate sidewalk superintendents, watching flames engulf the buildings that they normally try to save. For the first time in its 59-year history, the British Fire Brigades Union had called a nationwide strike, ordering the country's 32,000 full-time firemen not to answer alarms. The government of Prime Minister James Callaghan rushed in 10,000 soldiers, most of whom had received only a few days training in rudimentary fire fighting. At week's end 33 Royal Air Force fire teams were dispatched to 13 cities to aid beleaguered soldiers. Thanks to the valiant service of the emergency recruits, no major catastrophe had occurred, and no deaths were directly attributable to the strike--but the danger was there, hour by hour.

The strikers, who earn $121 a week after four years service, demanded a 20% pay hike that would, the union claims, boost their salaries to the current average wage for Britain's industrial workers plus a 10% bonus for hazardous duty. (New York City firemen with similar experience make $385 a week.) But to combat Britain's inflation rate, now 15.6% annually, Callaghan's Labor government has set a 10% ceiling on all union pay increases over the next year.

Though many Britons expressed sympathy for the firemen's cause, their patience is bound to be tried if the strike drags on. In Glasgow, a fire in a textile factory got away from a company of 80 troops and raged for twelve hours. The building burned to the ground. As soldiers stood by helplessly without enough foam spreaders and breathing equipment which strikers had refused to hand over, a 30-hour blaze engulfed a $140 million power plant east of London.

For some firemen, picket duty took second place to heroic professionalism in the face of sudden danger. When troopers failed to check a blaze spreading through London's St. Andrew's Hospital, six strikers donned breathing equipment and rushed into the burning building. "For God's sake, it was a hospital," said one. "This was no time for striking." At week's end, with no settlement in sight, it looked as if the main thing separating Britain from a major fire disaster was luck.

The British Labor government was also spared a possible political calamity last week as the House of Commons voted a "guillotine," or cloture, motion to limit debate on Labor's historic plan to grant partial home rule to Scotland and Wales. The legislation would authorize the Scottish Assembly to pass and administer laws dealing with such issues as education, health, housing and transportation; the Welsh would be granted more limited powers in the administration of laws passed by Westminster. It was a crucial victory for Prime Minister Callaghan, who had made home rule--"devolution," in the British phrase--the linchpin of his legislative program this year. After debating both bills for a total of 28 days, Commons must then cast a final vote--which now seems certain to be one of approval. The House of Lords is permitted to amend the legislation, and then Scotland and Wales must ratify the acts in regional referendums. Polls indicate that the vote in Scotland will probably be favorable. The Welsh, wary of replacing what they consider second-class citizenship with second-class home rule, are far less certain to accept London's proffered gift.

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