Equality

After Hurricane Melissa hit the Caribbean in October, the FBU Black and Ethnic Minority Members (B&EMM) Committee launched a donation drive. BE&MM sectional chair Karen Bell reports When Hurricane Melissa hit the island of Jamaica no one could have imagined the storm’s ferocity, or the trail of...

Threats to women’s specific PPE are a safety risk, says the FBU’s National Women’s Committee In 1996, firefighter Fleur Lombard lost her life in the line of duty. Her death remains a stark reminder that inadequate PPE design can have fatal consequences. Nearly three decades later, the same danger...

Ben Selby explains how men in the fire and rescue service can take part in White Ribbon Day this year The White Ribbon movement began in 1991, founded by a group of men who sought to challenge and prevent violence against women and girls. Statistics on gender-based violence are still shocking today...

The FBU’s LGBT+ section stands in full solidarity with our trans and non-binary siblings, writes interim LGBT+ national sectional secretary Maria Buck  Earlier this year, Supreme Court judges ruled that women and men are defined in equalities law by biological sex recorded at birth. While this has...

The fire and rescue service is at a crossroads. After 14 years of austerity, Labour has a duty to deliver for public safety. In this edition, I set out our plan on pay: for pay progression, pay equality, and a recovery from the damage done under the Conservatives. We are making good progress with...

Cuts to Personal Independent Payments (PIP) threaten to make life harder for thousands – including FBU members, writes Dawn Forrest of the FBU Disabled and Neurodivergent members forum Westminster plans set out in April will tighten the eligibility criteria for PIP, so that claimants must meet...

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...

Kasey LeGall, interim secretary of the Black and Ethnic Minority Members section (B&EMM) on fire service culture reviews, mental health, and driving change through the union In recent years, an increasing number of fire and rescue services have commissioned “culture reviews”, investigating...