Fire Brigades Union

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**FBU**
Fire Brigades Union
Founded	1918
Members	48,000
Country	United Kingdom
Affiliation	TUC STUC EPSU PSI CSC JFC PSC Amnesty International
Key people	Matt Wrack, General Secretary Mick Shaw, President Andy Dark, Assistant General Secretary Dean Mills, National Officer John McGhee, National Officer Paul Woolstenholmes, National Officer Sean Starbuck, National Officer
Office location	Bradley House 68 Coombe Road Kingston upon Thames London KT2 7AE
Website	www.fbu.org.uk

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is the main union for retained ( part - time ), wholetime firefighters and emergency control staff in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1918 in the London area as the Firemans Trade Union, but soon grew to cover the entire country. During the Second World War, it began to unionise auxiliaries for the first time. Today, it has around 48,000 members, and represents the majority of firefighters and emergency control staff in the United Kingdom.

Led by its then General Secretary Andy Gilchrist, the union called a strike over pay and conditions in 2002 following an independent review of pay carried out by the same organisation which reviewed MP's pay.

The strike was seen as a failure and Gilchrist was criticised for giving in to government pressure and for some of his activity during the dispute which led to rank-and-file anger at the unions then leadership. An expression of this anger was seen on May 5, 2005 when leftwinger Matt Wrack beat the incumbent General Secretary, Gilchrist, attaining 63.9% of the vote (12,883 votes). The FBU had already disaffiliated from the Labour Party and calls for re-affiliation have been defeated on a regular basis.