Features

The FBU has commissioned an independent internal review into racism, calling on all members – retired and serving – to take part. Professor Nicola Rollock, Director of NIANRO Consulting, explains why   In recent years, a series of damning culture reviews have been published, detailing institutional...

A tower block fire in the nineties should have alerted politicians to the dangers of deregulation – instead they allowed homes to become ticking time bombs. Paul Hampton uncovers a web of complicity and deceit in the new FBU book on the causes of the Grenfell Tower fire  On 5 April 1991, fire...

FBU general secretary Steve Wright sets the union’s plan to negotiate on pay in the coming year   Pay is the FBU’s number one industrial priority. For 15 years now, firefighters have watched the value of their pay fall. Almost every profession in the public sector has suffered a drop.  There are a...

Firefighter catches up with FBU activists at the union’s first Young Members’ School this summer Recep (Aj) HAWKINS Avon   Age 21   I joined Avon Fire and Rescue Service in December 2021 and did 14 months on call before applying to go wholetime - that’s when I met FBU reps. Since then I’ve been to a...

With the annual FBU photo competition open to members’ entries until July 25, the professionals share their best photos and top tips for a winning shot   Jess Hurd   Best shot  - above There are occasions where I am working side-by-side with firefighters on the frontline, this was one of them. The...

Birmingham bin workers’ fight against pay cuts has seen them take on the city council – and the government – in one of the most significant strikes of recent years, writes Paula Dunne of Strike Map Climbing into the minibus at quarter to five in the morning, nine of us travelled to Birmingham as...

Australian firefighters have led the way in researching and preventing exposure to PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in firefighter foams. Firefighter reports  “Never tell a firefighter they can’t achieve something”. These words, uttered by Michael Tisbury of the United Firefighters Union of...

Blackpool’s firefighters battle to keep people safe in a seaside town that has come to symbolise “left behind Britain”, hit hard by austerity. Helen Hague reports on life on the frontline – and hope for the future.   Blackpool – home to the union’s conference in May - boomed as a seaside town in the...

Every year hundreds of delegates, elected from FBU brigades across the UK, travel to the union’s annual conference to democratically decide the union’s priorities, policies, and rules.  Firefighter reports on the main decisions and debates from the conference floor in Blackpool’s Imperial hotel this...

The reopening of Redhills Durham is a reminder of how Britain’s trade unions built their own networks of welfare, art and culture, writes Rhian E. Jones  Coalmining has played an essential part in shaping Durham. Beyond the county’s picture-postcard city, cathedral and university, the Durham...