News

Labour Party conference delegates unanimously passed an FBU-supported motion backing firefighters on pay. Successful conference motions become Labour Party policy. Labour leader Keir Starmer has failed to back striking workers and advised frontbench shadow cabinet members to stay away from picket...

Merseyside FBU members are being balloted on industrial action short of a strike over attacks on their terms and conditions. The ballot asks if members want to stop undertaking any pre-arranged overtime for up to six months. The ballot and any action that might follow are separate from the current...

The FBU’s DECON campaign is becoming an important part of fire and rescue across the country. Events like a recent joint Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS) and FBU seminar to embed the DECON campaign across the service show how this is happening. Professor Anna Stec of the University of...

FBU members are voting in a consultative ballot on a revised 5% pay offer. After the union’s executive council rejected a 2% offer after consultation among members, it decided to begin preparing a ballot for strike action. However, fire service employers then came back with an increased 5% offer...

Firefighters returned to Durham this year to join thousands of other workers and trade unionists at the annual miners’ gala. The weekend began with a three-day FBU national officer school, which had been postponed from 2020. Attendees heard from speakers including Bakers, Food and Allied Workers...

The FBU has reported two fire and rescue services to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and identified several others, in relation to bringing in policy which would see firefighters sent into fires without donning their breathing apparatus facemask. The FBU wrote to the HSE urging it to...

The Westminster government’s fire and rescue White Paper is a coordinated attack on pay and conditions, the FBU has charged. In its formal submission, the union criticises the White Paper’s proposals as an attack on firefighters’ right to have a say on their pay and conditions, including those...

Firefighters across all workplaces, duty systems, ranks and roles have responded angrily to a 2% pay offer from fire and rescue employers. Following an extensive membership consultation and reflecting the outcomes, the union’s executive council unanimously rejected the offer and has agreed to...

FBU work on cancer in firefighters was the focus of a Europe-wide meeting of firefighters and their representa­tives. Riccardo la Torre, FBU national officer, attended the meeting. He said: “DECON is here to stay in the UK fire and rescue service, and now firefighters from across Europe are keen to...

FBU members have serious concerns about a raft of proposed cuts that will put public safety at risk. They include cutting the second fire engine at night from Harrogate and Scarborough fire stations, changing Huntingdown fire station from full-time to part-time cover, and significantly cutting...