A damning letter from the national women’s committee of the FBU has called on the Westminster government to stop trading on their name to further their political objectives over pensions.
National secretary of the committee Samantha Rye says they were left no option but to respond after the minister published several open letters over the past six months with inaccurate references to women firefighters.
“Penny Mordaunt has let down women firefighters just as much as she has done our male colleagues.
“We supplied case studies of women firefighters whose future careers were at risk due to the pension changes to the minister in a meeting last year. At the time she said she was looking to “improve the deal on the table”. However nothing has changed and the minister continues to trade on our name.
“If Penny Mordaunt really wants to help women firefighters she should provide all a fair, affordable and sustainable pension to all firefighters. Not one that will see women’s careers destroyed as a result of naturally declining fitness through unworkable pension changes.”
The minister was also criticised for being part of the coalition government whose first act after coming to power in 2010 was to downgrade the DCLG equality strategy resulting in a number of fire and rescue authorities failing to adopt and maintain progressive equality initiatives.
Calling the minister’s apparent concern of bad practice in the service “cynical” the letter says the government have chosen to demonise fire and rescue service employees for having the audacity to seek a fair pension.
As a result of the 2015 firefighter pension changes more then 1000 women have fallen out of any form of pension protection.
The women’s committee of the FBU was established in 1999 to tackle the difficulties that women firefighters have had in an area of work that has traditionally been regarded as male.
