Delegates Move to Create Global Alliance With Other Fire Unions

Left: Derek Best, national secretary of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union, spoke to delegates Monday about the new global alliance of the fire service unions in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom. Right: Peter Marshall, national secretary of the United Firefighters Union of Australia, addressed Convention delegates August 28.

August 29, 2006 - Convention delegates Monday approved a resolution allowing the International Association of Fire Fighters to formalize a strategic global alliance with other fire service unions across the globe.

“The time has come for our international to reach out to our brothers and sisters in other nations so that, together, we can develop even more effective means of protecting our members and improving their livelihoods,” IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger told delegates. 

Under the resolution, the IAFF Executive Board has authority to form a strategic global alliance with the United Firefighters Union of Australia, New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union and the Fire Brigades Union of the United Kingdom. The resolution also allows the IAFF to pursue relationships with unions in other countries. IAFF leaders met with these unions in Hawaii in July to discuss the parameters of the global alliance.

“We are more than 100 percent supportive of formalizing international alliances,” Derek Best, national secretary of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union, said in his remarks to delegates.

“For us to survive, we need to unite in a sense of strategic programming to ensure that an attack on one is an attack on all,” Peter Marshall, national secretary of the United Firefighters of Australia, passionately told delegates.

During meetings in July the unions discovered their concerns and objectives are strikingly similar. The national deficiencies they face also are strikingly similar, from inadequate staffing and training to privatization efforts and cost-cutting by elected officials.

In addition, Marshall said, employers are working together to undermine unions, so unions must form cross-border relationships.

“Threats to labor have the same ugly face in North America as they do in the South Pacific. That is why it makes sense to ignore the borders that separate us and form this new global alliance,” Schaitberger said. .

Representatives of the Fire Brigades Union of the United Kingdom planned to attend the convention, but an impending strike prevented labor leaders from leaving the country. Convention delegates also passed a resolution in support of the FBU in its strike.