On Wednesday Britain’s Fire Brigade Union (FBU) staged a 24-hour walkout to protest proposed changes to firefighters’ pension arrangements – the latest in a series of strikes that’s been going on since the summer of 2013. This photo shows a number of London’s firefighters protesting outside Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall.
The city’s authorities actually have a legal duty to provide emergency services at all times, and so used outside contractors, known as CapitalGuard, to ensure that 27 fire engines would still be available throughout the day.
Nonetheless, mayor Boris Johnson has stoked the flames by proposing that anyone who strikes for any part of a shift should be “locked out”, losing their pay for an entire day. In October, the FBU’s London secretary Paul Embery said that the proposals, which the London Assembly has repeatedly rejected, would have “thrown a hand grenade” into the dispute.
