PLAN PAY

Is of the country meet today reek's seven-day 'emergencyand hours.

London firemen yesterday continued their three-day-old 'spit-and-polish' ban in support of 300 Essex firemen's demands for a £63-a-year Outer London 'weighting'.

But normal working is expected to resume today after pleas from leaders of the 30,000-strong Fire Brigades Union to 'move on to the bigger issue'.

Union leaders have in fact now accepted the Essex fire authority's insistence that the 'weighting' is only paid to half the stations in its area -with Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Baddow, Basildon, Hadleigh, Clacton and Dovercourt left out in the cold.

And they are attempting to tie demands for substantially increased pay and shorter hours to a call for the Tory government to set up an independent tribunal.

'Consider'

Asked at a Wednesday press conference what the union would do if the government turned down its demands, FBU president Enoch Humphries could say no more than: 'We will have to consider what we would recommend on the matter.' "Tribune'-ite FBU general secretary Terry Parry seemed equally nonplussed.

Yet Humphries had earlier been forced to admit that when first eight, and then 85 Essex men were suspended without pay for their 'spitand-polish' action 'there wasn't a squeak from the fireauthority employers or the government'-despite the fact that this could have provoked a. wider dispute. INFORMAL talks on the manual council workers' pay claim have broken down and union leaders will begin official action. London will be the first affected area, where selected groups of men will be called out on strike next London stewards remain determined, however, to call all the city's boroughs out on strike, despite the unións' plans to launch selective action only.

The National Union Public Employees, one of the three unions involved in the 55s pay claim, says employers had not improved on their offer of 35s with a £16 10s minimum earnings guarantee.

'All they did in talks on Wednesday was to re-shuffle their offer, the amount they 'We feel that selective action is more intelligent than a total stoppage.

"There was some talk of deferring action until October 5, but as far as I am concerned this has now died.

'Some sections, like ambulance men, will be called out perhaps only for a day, other sections will come out and stay out to be joined by other depots as the strike progresses!

Terry Wilson, secretary of the militant strike co-ordinating committee based in London said that they still planned to call the London men out as a body on Tuesday -the original date fixed for