Firefighters in England say 100-hour weeks to pay bills are ‘gamble with safety’

15 comments
  1. The current Lord Chancellor was fire service minister in 2013 and paved the way for privatising the fire service. This was through a change in the law to allow fire fighting and rescue to be outsourced and bring in private contractors. This is one of the most right wing governments in political history so watch this space.

  2. We depend on firefighters I see no reason for them not to be paid adequately for being the heroes they are. Especially when you think of how much CEOes of banks, or politicians & the like get paid..

  3. Fire service fights less fires nowadays but their still essential in car accidents and other situations.

  4. You need £40k as a family to be on the breadline these days. Don’t see how anything under this is not just indentured serfery.

  5. > Firefighters across the country told the Observer that the service was at “breaking point” with more crew than ever being forced to take jobs such as personal trainers, painters and decorators or in warehouses. Wages in the fire service are often about £30,000 but can be as low as £23,000.

    Firefighters have to be very physically fit to join the force. You may as well be giving up the emergency services entirely and working full time as a PT on those wages.

    Think about it this way, what would you rather earn, £10 to £13 per hour doing unsociable hours, or upwards of £40 per hour from helping gym-goers get buff as fuck.

  6. They definitely deserve better pay, they have probably one of the hardest jobs. Yes physically demanding etc, but likely extremely emotionally demanding too. They literally cut dead bodies out of cars, pull dead bodies from burning buildings. They must see some truly horrific stuff, I don’t know how they cope with that, I wouldn’t be able to.

  7. Couple of holes in your statement, but we are getting off track now. My original point was that we essentially borrowed against potential growth, the wage gap grew and now it’s left to everyday people to pick up the bill.

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