LONDON firefighters are threatening strike action and a court challenge if the London Fire Brigade presses ahead with plans to introduce 12 hour shifts.

The London Fire Brigade has triggered three-month formal consultations with the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) on terminating the firefighters’ existing contracts and offering them back their jobs with new start and finish times.

London fire commissioner Ron Dobson says discussions and negotiations on changes to the shift patterns have been running for five years without any agreement.

He says he is confident the new talks, which begin on August 23 will produce a settlement which will make terminating the contracts unecessary.

But the union claims 12 hour shifts will disrupt firefighters’ familiy lives and mean cuts in night time fire cover, and says it will never agree to them.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said of the threat to contracts: “Sacking all of London’s firefighters as a way of trying to impose new contracts is the action we would expect from Victorian mill owners – not from a modern public service.

"I am sure Londoners will be appalled at how their firefighters are being treated.

"We will fight the disgraceful attack every step of the way."