‘FIREFIGHTERS and control staff are being left with no other choice but to take action,’ Fire Brigades Union (FBU) General Secretary Matt Wrack said in a statement yesterday.
He was responding to the results of a survey which found Fire Service bosses are being paid six figure sums as firefighters face ‘real terms’ pay cuts and ‘In Work’ poverty.
Chief fire officers are paid an average pay of £148,000, with the highest being £206,000 – over six times more than an ordinary firefighter.
The stark inequalities in pay for firefighters and management were revealed in data released as a result of Freedom of Information requests.
The staggering sums are paid to top level management while some firefighters have to rely on food banks and take on additional jobs to afford the basics.
Firefighters and control staff have rejected a 5% offer, with inflation currently at 10.7%.
After a decade of below or at-inflation pay settlements, the Fire Brigades Union has had reports of firefighters and control staff being forced to use food banks and struggling to pay their bills.
This most recent pay offer, a ‘real terms pay cut’, has led to a ballot for strike action.
A competent wholetime firefighter is paid £32,244.
Eleven chief fire officers are paid more than the Prime Minister, and every single chief fire officer in the country is on £100,000 or more. There is a chief fire officer for each of the UK’s 48 fire and rescue services.
Commenting on the findings, Wrack said: ‘Firefighters and control staff are facing yet another real terms pay cut while fire chiefs rake in huge salaries. FBU members are increasingly facing real “In Work” poverty, with firefighters having to rely on food banks and take on additional jobs to afford the basics.
‘At the same time, some fire chiefs are also trying to persuade firefighters and control staff to step back from industrial action, to simply shut up about salaries that are several times smaller than their bosses.
‘It’s insulting and stinks of hypocrisy of some chief officers who refuse to make the case for better pay for their workers. Chief fire officers are not worth six times more than firefighters – it was the latter who were called key workers during the pandemic delivering vital services including moving the bodies of the deceased. Firefighters and control staff are being left with no other choice but to take action.’
A strike by firefighters across Scotland is ‘inevitable’ unless an improved pay offer is put on the table, Scottish FBU secretary John McKenzie warned yesterday.
He told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme his members should be offered a deal in line with inflation, which is currently 10.7%.
He said the most recent proposal for a 5% raise was ‘overwhelmingly rejected’ by 80% of members in the autumn.
McKenzie added: ‘If employers can’t find the position to improve that offer then, inevitably, I think we are looking at a positive vote for strike action and then, ultimately, that is what we will be left with at the end of next month.’
Although the Scottish government is not part of the negotiations, the FBU official said it had delivered a £10m uplift for SFRS funding for 2023/24.
But McKenzie said: ‘The reality of that is a 3% increase on the previous budget allocation but we are now looking at inflation running at almost 11%.
‘That doesn’t come close to covering the costs that the service is going to require and pay is obviously an element of that.’
