The Giuliani campaign is fighting attempts by firefighter unions to besmirch his record as mayor and his actions in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

After the International Association of Fire Fighters yesterday released a critical 13-minute video called “Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend,” campaign aides held a press conference in Midtown to refute the video’s claims. This came hours after the campaign issued a three-page memo detailing the union’s history of supporting democratic candidates and a day after another memo detailing his actions to improve the fire department’s infrastructure.

In the video, New York City firefighters describe Mayor Giuliani’s negligence in letting firefighters use dysfunctional radios and his decision to build an emergency management command center at 7 World Trade Center after a terrorist attack in 1994. The video also focuses on Mr. Giuliani’s initial decision to truck away September 11 debris without first recovering remains of victims.

“We have remains of dead heroes out at the garbage dump because of Giuliani and his administration,” a firefighter, James Riches, says in the video.

The union, which produced the film in coordination with the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York and Uniformed Fire Officers Association, plans to send the video to 285,000 firefighters.

“We’re just setting the record straight,” the president of the UFA, Stephen Cassidy, told The New York Sun. “We had 120 firefighters in the north tower who couldn’t get out because they had pieces of junk for radios. … We know he’s not qualified to be the president and Americans will learn that, too.”

The campaign’s memo described the IAFF as having a history of partisan politics, endorsing, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Senator Kerry.

“The union leadership makes Michael Moore look like Edward Murrow with this documentary, which is really more of a mockumentary,” a spokesman for the Giuliani campaign, Michael McKeon, said.

A former commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management, Richard Sheirer, cited Mr. Giuliani’s decision to issue firefighters “bunker gear” — equipment that shields them from extreme flames and heat — after two firefighters died in 1994 as an example of his loyalty to the department. A retired firefighter whose son died trying to rescue people from the World Trade Center, Lee Ielpi, said the video was full of “half-truths and half-statements.”

“The IAFF should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.

A professor at Cooper Union who wrote a book on Mr. Giuliani, Fred Siegel, said the union is an interest group that clashed with Mr. Giuliani over pay and other issues.

“How this plays out depends on how well they make the case to the public,” Mr. Siegel said. “It can’t help him.”