LONDON (AP) -- Thousands of British firefighters walked off the job for the third time in less than three months Tuesday after failing to resolve a wage dispute with the government.
The Fire Brigades Union said its 55,000 members would stop work for 24 hours. It plans two 48-hour work stoppages on Jan. 28 and Feb. 11.
The government has placed about 19,000 military troops on standby to cover for the strikers as it did in two earlier strikes Nov. 13-15 and Nov. 22-30.
The nation's firefighters have rejected a proposed 11 percent pay raise over two years in exchange for changes to work rules intended to improve efficiency. The union claims the new contract would eliminate 4,500 jobs.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott warned the walkout makes it more difficult to settle the dispute and poses a danger to public safety.
``Strikes cannot and will not achieve anything. Do not put the public at unnecessary risk,'' Prescott said in a speech in the House of Commons on Monday.
Prescott said the government had built on lessons from previous strikes and had plans in place for 19,000 military personnel and their aging ``Green Goddess'' fire trucks to provide emergency cover during the strike.
The firefighters staged 10 days of strikes last year in an effort to secure a 40 percent pay raise, which would bring the annual salary of a fully qualified firefighter to $48,000.
Recently, the union has given signs it might be prepared to drop its pay demand to 16 percent.
The government says agreeing to such a large raise would prompt other government workers to seek similar increases and wreck the country's finances.
Public support for the firefighters appears strong. A survey published Monday showed that 63 percent of people back the new strike, as long as fire crews respond to major emergency calls, as they did during the November walkouts.
The study by the Mori Social Research Institute found that only 17 percent of people would support the strike if firefighters decided not to respond to major emergencies. Mori interviewed 955 adults for the poll which was conducted over the weekend. The margin or error is plus or minus three percentage points.
