Record of Decisions
WOMEN MEMBERS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
9th december 2008

Resolution 1 - National FBU Equalities and Diversity Strategy

This Women Members AGM applauds the South West Regions innovative and challenging “FBU Equality and Diversity Strategy”. This strategy was developed following the launch in May 2008 of the Governments own strategy entitled “Fire and Rescue Service Equality and Diversity Strategy 2008-2018”. The South West FBU strategy ensures that employers don’t ignore the challenges ahead regarding equality and diversity and also enables the FBU to put forward the views and thoughts of members to ensure positive change occurs within the workplace.
Therefore, this Women’s AGM demands that the Executive Council develop a National FBU Equality and Diversity Strategy within 6 months of this AGM and reports progress back to the National Womens Committee.

Mover: Region 13 CARRIED

Resolution 2 - National Re- Branding of the Image of a Firefighter

UK Fire and Rescue Services have a specific problem with the recruitment of a diverse work force reflective of the community they serve and a significant contributing factor to the low application rate is that such groups find it difficult to identify with the stereotypical image of a firefighter. This stereotype is widely embedded in UK culture, but the reality has changed considerably over the past ten years. Equipment is much lighter, more efficient and working practices aim to control the risks faced in emergency situations. With a greater emphasis on prevention and education the role of a firefighter is more varied and more social than at any time previously.

Some small-scale positive action campaigns run sporadically by local FRS’s are unlikely to be enough to challenge the stereotype that prevents many people from under-represented groups from identifying with the role of a firefighter. For this reason, we propose a united national re-branding of the role of a firefighter to challenge the routinely accepted stereotype and demonstrate that a career in the FRS is applicable to all. The success of this campaign would be dependent on Fire and Rescue Services collectively contributing to this goal and adopting a national strategy. The success of this campaign will improve the work environment for people from under-represented groups who are currently employed and will significantly improve the recruitment problem of a diverse work force reflective of the community they serve.

Mover: Region 8  CARRIED

Resolution 3 - FBU Equality Education
This AGM notes that in 2008 the only specific national equality education that took place was the Equality Impact Assessment Training for Fairness at Work Reps in November.
This AGM is very concerned that without a national education programme that deals specifically with Fairness at Work education, that the FBU may take a backwards step from our current very positive record on equality.
Therefore this AGM calls upon the EC to develop with the National Fairness at Work Committee a programme of FAW education, which will include stage 1 and stage 2 FAW schools.
This programme of FAW education is to be developed as a matter of urgency and must take place within 2009.
Mover: Region 7 CARRIED

Resolution 4 – Positive Action

This Women’s AGM is concerned that the numbers of women firefighters employed in the UK Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) is still very low with only 3.1% of all Firefighter’s in England being women (2007 data).

This AGM welcomes the Governments recently launched equality and diversity strategy which calls upon FRS’s in England to ensure that by the year 2013, a minimum of 15% of all new entrants to the operational sector be women. This AGM believes that to achieve this target, the FRS needs to embrace positive action. Some FRS’s have seen the benefits of positive action campaigning as statistics show that those FRS’s that carried out positive action work have seen an increase in applications from women.

This progressive attitude needs to be adopted by all UK FRS’s. The National Women’s Committee (NWC) have inputted into a Positive Action Best Practice negotiating tool for Brigade Officials to use when negotiating with management.

We therefore call upon the Executive council to;

• Distribute the positive action document to all Brigade Officials in order for them to raise the issue with management
• Instruct Brigade Officials to report back to the Executive Council within 6 months on any progress made
• Encourage Brigade officials to utilize the FBU equality committees experience regarding local positive action initiatives

All progress to be reported back to this Women’s AGM 2009

 Mover Region 1  CARRIED

Resolution 5 - Member’s representation

This Women Members AGM calls upon the EC to review the current procedures regarding member eligibility for obtaining FBU legal representation regarding all discrimination cases.

Further, we believe that the decision must always be determined by more than one individual and must factor in the member’s wishes and the principle of the case as the main drivers for the decision to fund legal representation.  

This AGM recognizes the plight of women members when deciding to take out an Employment Tribunal case and knows only too well that compensation for the member may not be the main driver in every case.

It is not solely a court win, but to protect a member’s ability and right to work that is important and we also believe that upholding principles and challenging immoral practice is a positive step for the FBU.

Mover: Region 12 CARRIED

Resolution 6  - ADAE

This Women Members AGM calls upon the Executive Council to monitor the process of All Different All Equal (ADAE) investigations more stringently, paying particular regard to the timescales within the policy.

We further call upon the Executive Council, when compiling their annual report to conference, to report an additional statistic in relation to the length of time taken to conclude all ADAE investigations.

This additional data to be available commencing Annual Conference 2010.

Mover: Region 3   CARRIED

Resolution 7 - Bullying and harassment

When a case of bullying and Harassment on a Retained Fire Station comes to the attention of a fire and Rescue service it is too often ignored or trivialised, the victim is then in a situation where the inappropriate behaviour of the bullies is seen to be condoned by the FRS concerned as action to prevent the inappropriate behaviour is not taken.

We call upon the EC to instigate a survey of all FRS to determine the number of grievances relating to bullying and harassment on retained Fire Stations that result in a discipline hearing being bought against the protagonist(s).

We also seek to determine, of those that do not result in discipline action being taken by the FRS concerned, how many cases end up with an Employment Tribunal for the complainant. The survey to be completed within 12 months, and a transparent and progressive strategy be formulated from results, to enable joint working with our employers to deal with bullying and Harassment on Retained Fire Stations.

Mover: Region 12 CARRIED

Resolution 8 - PPE RESEARCH

This Women’s Annual General Meeting is appalled to learn that some women firefighters are being provided by their Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and protective clothing that does not fit them. Women are either being forced to wear this ill fitting protective clothing, which is unsafe, or they are being excluded from some forms of work activity due to such poor provision.

This Women’s AGM notes that many FRS’ blame their supplier for not offering a variety of sizes however; some FRS’ blame the introduction of central purchasing which they believe hinders them from having an influence on the protective clothing being bought.

This situation is wholly unacceptable and we therefore call upon the Executive Council to investigate and research the availability of suitable PPE and protective clothing within the market place. We further call upon the EC to publish their findings and apply enormous pressure to the relevant national forums in order to rectify this appalling situation.

All progress is to be reported back to the Women’s AGM 2009

Mover: Region 1  CARRIED

Resolution 9 - Personal Protective Equipment
This Women Members AGM is appalled that many Fire & Rescue Services (FRS) have adopted a “one size fits all policy” in regard to the provision of some items of personal protective equipment (PPE). Women members are often excluded from specific workplace activity such as water rescue and chemical incidents due to the PPE provided being too big for them to wear safely.
This situation is unacceptable and therefore this AGM demands that the Executive Council:-

• Urgently seek to rectify this negative situation affecting our women members by raising this issue at the National Joint Council as well as any other relevant national forums.
• Mount a campaign in firefighter and any other written form, to highlight and encourage our members to report ill fitting PPE as a near miss.
• Set up a data base to monitor and assess the situation within each Fire and Rescue Service.

This AGM further instructs the Executive Council to report back any progress made to the National Women’s Committee within 6 months of this AGM.

Mover: Region 13   CARRIED

Resolution 10- Shift Patterns

This AGM recognises that shift work is vital to the provision of professional, reliable, year round public services and for employees, when provided with family friendly requirements such as flexible working, childcare and good workplace provisions, employment in this sector is a gender neutral vocation.

In view of this and the failure of the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) over the last decade to significantly increase diversity in the workforce in relation to Women, LGBT and BME staff, the Government’s CLG department recently launched an FRS ten year strategy to increase equality and diversity in the FRS in these areas.

However, employers locally are now utilising this as a smokescreen of false ‘family friendly’ arguments to detrimentally change shift patterns in the service for all employees. The backlash of which is of course detrimental to those very minority groups already under-represented and research shows, the current 2,2,4 shift patterns are conducive to family life for men and women.

In view of the damaging effects on members, we call upon the Executive Council to be aware of and combat these sexist attacks on our members, fuelled by employers’ continued misuse of equality as a route to detrimentally changing conditions of service.

Mover: Region 8 CARRIED

Resolution 11 – Best Practice

            This Women’s AGM believes that in the interests of achieving the best for all FBU women members, the Grey Book Fairness at Work section should include a ‘best practice’ clause for policies.

            This AGM notes that due to the Grey Book providing a set of minimum standards, women FBU members in different Brigades are being subjected to different arrangements.  This AGM calls upon the Executive Council to negotiate, at the NJC, the provision of a ‘best practice’ clause within the Grey Book.  This would encourage all Brigades to adopt the best negotiated policies, with a view to continual improvements for our members.

Mover: Region 10   CARRIED

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Published by Fire Brigades Union National Women's Committee