ETHICS AND WORK IN EMERGENCIES 211The ambulance service is likely to attend many of the incidents to which the
fire service is called, but often the work of the fire service has to be done before
theirs can begin. So even among front-line services, the fire service is often
foremost.
Unlike many others in the world, the UK fire service is legally able to take
industrial action. It does so infrequently. The strike of 2002–3 was the first
in twenty-five years. The fact that it seldom takes strike action and only then
with considerable reluctance; the fact that its members face danger, sometimes
extreme danger, in the course of normal duties; the fact that the fire service
performs well by many measures of response to incidents: all of these things
contributed to the considerable sympathy the public displayed towards the
strikers in opinion polls and in shows of support for pickets, at the beginning
of the strike in November 2002. The firemen’s demand for a 40 per cent
wage increase was not greeted as excessive, because people agreed that their
salaries were very low, unfairly low in comparison to those of the police. A poll
conducted three weeks after the beginning of industrial action showed more
that 53 per cent of the public in support of the strikers, up from 47 per cent at
the very beginning of the strike (The Guardian, 19th November 2002).
These attitudes are unsurprising if people believe that the UK fire service
is routinely called upon to face dangers that most people never face, and, in
particular, that much better paid people never face. A certain amount of FBU
campaigning material suggested precisely this. ‘Would you do all this for £6
an hour?’ an FBU poster asked, over pictures of firemen attending major train
accidents and fires. An FBU website which reproduced the poster, directed
visitors to comparisons of firefighters’ pay with the pay of politicians (FBU
2002). Unchallenged data in the Bain Report, however, shows very clearly that,
in recent history, the UK fire service hasnotroutinely been called upon to
face extreme danger. In 2000–1, under half of the incidents attended by the
fire service were fires of any description, and attending to these consistently
occupies no more than 10 per cent of fire service time (Bain 2002: §3.6). The
proportion of call-outs for real fires (42 per cent) is virtually equal to the
number of false alarms (41 per cent) (see Bain 2002: Figure 3.1), and real fires
can include fires that are not a major threat to life or property. Rescues bring
the proportion of genuine incidents to 47 per cent. There is a concentration of
call-outs for real fires at night, so that fire service personnel on day shifts may
have long periods of relative inactivity or routine andsafeduties. This is not to
say that the firefighter’s job is not demanding. A high degree of physical fitness
has to be maintained and training regimes see to this. Again, regular training
includes practices and exercises that can themselves be dangerous. But these
facts do not bear out the implication of the FBU poster—that only £6 per hour
is paid for what is routinely highly dangerous work. As a rule £6 per hour or
more is paid for work that need not be and more often than not actuallyisn’t
dangerous. Indeed, a high proportion of some shifts can be stand-down time,