Bullying in the fire service

The Fire Brigades’ Union (FBU) reported that in a YouGov poll, carried out in December 2014, two-in-five firefighters (40%) said they had been bullied at work in recent years. Of those who had been bullied, the majority (60%) attributed the bullying to senior managers, while a third blamed corporate management policy and similar numbers said it was their immediate line managers. The union reported that the vast amount of bullying recorded by this survey was management bullying of employees lower down the hierarchy.

Three-quarters (76%) of respondents said that the FBU had been helpful in tackling the bullying they had faced, while three-quarters (74%) said that fire and rescue service managers had not been helpful.