They are certainly losing public support as this drags on - Gilchrist has led them down a path that I feel they may eventually regret. A light blue colleague's sister-in-law is a firefighter - she claims that she does not agree with the strike, but being a union member, is still putting her feet up next Thursday. The real downside for her is that she is being treated like a lepper in her village and is being ignored in shops etc, or, to put it another way, being treated like an Englishman in North Wales. I have come across a number of shops that no longer serve firefighters in uniform! Even when the strike is over, firefighters will have lost the respect of large portions of this country.