AF Federation

[JessTheDog]

I've heard around the bazaars that QRs don't prohibit the establishment of a "federation" for service personnel (like the police have) and that there is a Euro-move towards such a thing, with a bar on industrial action.

Questions are:

1. Would this help us with pay and conditions?
2. Would MOD be more circumspect in their dealings with us, their employees?
3. Would this impact operational efficiency?

Don't know how to do a poll, thoughts please...

[Tigs2]

I've thought this idea would help for years. I believe they have a federation in Holland and it works pretty well. The advantage is that it brings to the public eye some of the real problems within the military. Take the last redundancy trawl for example. We were faced with lets say in the order of a ten thousand reduction. The whole issue hardly made the news it ought to have done. If BAe said they were getting rid of 10 000 people there would have been public outcry, MP's jumping on soap boxes etc.

There could never be any form of action as you say with a federation, but they would have the opportunity to make the government feel very uncomfortable in the public eye about some of the cost saving measures that are taken. i.e the latest set of cut backs are clearly to pay for the war penalty during Telic. The services do an epic job and are rewarded for their sacrifice by facing further manpower reductions to balance the bean counters books.

[fuel2noise]

Time is ripe for a federation. In the current political climate it is probably the only way to get the REAL views of service personnel put forward to ministers without significant 'watering down' by many layers of promotion-seeking staff officers.

[polyglory]

I never thought I would agree with the idea of a federation.

I think the time has come for one to be considered and the views aired, the present political climate is a recipe for diaster for the Services.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Perhaps a link to this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111156) would be appropriate?

[allan907]

As an old reactionary.....and I guess that means that I'm out of touch and my ideas don't count....but a Federation really is the wrong way to go.

The Dutch have one and just look at the unkempt bunch of rag arses that they are. They even had recruiting videos extolling the benefits of same sex relationships within the armed forces.

In the early days of the AMPs liaison team I remember that the really hot topic was the width of ties for God's sake. The powers that be realised that it was a fleeting matter of the moment and ignored it (or rather they trotted out an excuse about procurement problems etc etc etc). Finally, the fashion wave in civvy street was just getting too strong and some idiot in MOD decided to give the boys what they wanted - thinner ties. By the time that they arrived on the scene the fashion had shifted 180 and wider ties were now back in. Fortunately someone decided that medium width ties would be the uniform and if you wanted to join then you could bloody well put up with them the same as the rest of the uniform.

A Federation has just this danger. Everybody will react to what happens to be the 'fashion' of the moment rather than looking at the long term view.

What is actually needed is some Air/Naval/General staffs that actually have some backbone. Generals/Air Marshals/Admirals that have the benefit of the big picture and can stand up and be counted. People that are willing to resign on principle rather than kow tow to protect their pension/next rank/'reputation'. And people at the top that haven't forgotten the guys at the bottom.