A NEW drive to tackle discrimination across fire services was announced by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) today, as it warned that the sector’s key workers are being “repeatedly failed — with some scared to speak out.”

General secretary Matt Wrack said firefighters have lost faith in chief fire officers and Tory ministers to end the abuse “after decades of failures on the issue.”

The dramatic intervention, which coincided with the opening day of the union’s 2023 conference, came after the fire inspectorate warned earlier this year that examples of racist, homophobic and misogynistic behaviour had been found in a quarter of services in England.

In a damning report published in March, his majesty’s inspector of fire-and-rescue services Roy Wilsher described the sector as a “boys’ club” where workers feel uncomfortable about reporting bad behaviour for fear of reprisals.

But today the FBU unveiled plans to investigate the sector itself and to fight the discrimination, harassment and bullying of firefighters.

Speaking in Blackpool’s Imperial Hotel, Mr Wrack set out the union’s plan to create its own set of reforms for the sector alongside a strategy to fight for their implementation. 

He said: “This crisis is the product of failings that go to the very top of the fire service.

“The government and chief fire officers have systematically failed to address the issue of equalities over decades and especially since 2010, when central government dropped its drive for equality and handed all control to local chief officers and local politicians.

“Reports have shown how racism, homophobia and misogyny are routinely ignored, or even instigated, by people at the very top.

“Putting the same leadership in charge of rescuing this situation would be entrusting it to the people who created the mess in the first place."

The union leader stressed that the FBU, as a “democratic union representing the overwhelming majority of the workforce, is the only body capable of running an effective campaign.

“The [FBU] will launch its own set of standards on equalities and will hold fire services to account against these.”

He also unveiled a national poster campaign aimed at “changing the conversation around discrimination” across the sector. 

In an earlier speech opening the three-day meet up, the union’s president Ian Murray said everyone involved in the emergency service has an “obligation to eradicate this despicable behaviour.”