Another industry killed by Unions

Tony Shelton

Tony Shelton

BS Detector, Esquire
I know there are a lot of firefighters here. What are your thoughts on this?

For the past year firefighters have been under the microscope for their "trading for overtime" operation they have going on.

On average firefighters use almost double the sick time of all other city employees. Here's how it works. They get together in teams and take sick days exactly at the right time so that their "partner" can come in for overtime pay. The partner then does the same for them later.

They found that MOST firefighters were taking home more in overtime pay than regular pay and most were making well over $100k per year with some hourly firefighters bringing in more than $250k per year.

Now the cities are cutting the budget.

Yesterday they got rid of 8 firefighters.

Yesterday the union put a full page ad in the paper trying to scare everyone and stating that they were willing to give up 3.2 million in raises, pay cuts, and benefits, but the city council wouldn't listen to them.

Today the city counsel said they are tired of being bullied and the offers to give up wages only came with a laundry list of guaranteed future increases that are far above what they have now. (Which is typical of union tactics) The city council also said they will fire 8 more tomorrow if the bullying continues.

The result of this is that the populace now look at the firefighters with disdain instead of respect. This is what happens when they go to bed with the devil (unions) and conspire to rip off the taxpayers with their overtime schemes.

An article in the paper today states that democrats always announce the support of the firefighters unions in their campaigns and literature. But this year the firefighters are so hated by all the normal people who have lost their homes when they lost their civilian jobs - the democrats have not used them on ANY of their campaigns. That says a lot.

Any thoughts on this?

And one more question for the firefighters. Why would a fire engine be required to accompany EVERY SINGLE ambulance call in the city? When a homeless man collapses on the sidewalk an ambulance and fire truck show up at the same time. Why? I believe it is to pad call numbers to justify the number of firefighters. Am I wrong?
 
Tony, That system wouldn't work at my old dep't as we were compensated with comp time, and who wants that? The reason you see an engine company on EMS calls is not to pad calls. Fire stations are built in closer proximity to each other than are ems stations due to ISO points and lower insurance premiums for the taxpayers. As a result an engine company can generally arrive on scene much quicker than an EMS unit. Not saying that the resulting volume of calls doesn't hurt come budget time. I can assure you that no firefighter enjoys running the headache call in the middle of the night and any other EMS call for that matter. At least I didn't.
 
offdutyfireman said:
Tony, That system wouldn't work at my old dep't as we were compensated with comp time, and who wants that? The reason you see an engine company on EMS calls is not to pad calls. Fire stations are built in closer proximity to each other than are ems stations due to ISO points and lower insurance premiums for the taxpayers. As a result an engine company can generally arrive on scene much quicker than an EMS unit. Not saying that the resulting volume of calls doesn't hurt come budget time. I can assure you that no firefighter enjoys running the headache call in the middle of the night and any other EMS call for that matter. At least I didn't.
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I can see that. Shelly was involved in an injury accident a few years ago, the fire truck arrived in about 15 minutes with the ambulance right behind and the police showed up more than 3 hours later.
 
It happens in private industry too. It's just easier to get by with when your spending other peoples (taxpayers) money. And you get rewarded with more money if you can make it look like there's a need.

I knew UAW guys at a GM plant that had buddies clock them in and out and never even show up for work. This went on for years. They were robbing the company. Look where that got GM. Of course Obama helped them out.

That's the ONLY thing good about a really bad economy. I stress ONLY. It makes everyone look at their costs. Government, business and even just the public.
 
IndyExterior said:
Of course Obama helped them out.
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If I remember correctly, In September, 2008 the Big Three asked for $50 billion to pay for health care expenses and avoid bankruptcy and ensuing layoffs, and Congress worked out a 25$ billion loan. By December, President Bush had agreed to an emergency bailout of $17.4 billion to be distributed by the Obama administration in January and February.
 
Tony Shelton said:
And one more question for the firefighters. Why would a fire engine be required to accompany EVERY SINGLE ambulance call in the city? When a homeless man collapses on the sidewalk an ambulance and fire truck show up at the same time. Why? I believe it is to pad call numbers to justify the number of firefighters. Am I wrong?
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I'm sure that they send an engine just in case the injured party was on fire. As you know, spontaneous combustion is a real concern - especially in the desert.
 
The Unions have had their place in this country and I grew up in a union family ,and was a Teamster myself for a few years. My father busted his back 6 to 7 days a week for 32 years and now enjoys a decent pension that he earned every penny of. That being said most unions I have dealt with have a mentality of milking the company they work for for every thing they can get,and almost see the employer like the enemy that they have to battle at every chance they get. Big city municipal unions are the worst. NYC transit cops had a scheme years ago where they would arrest a homeless guy at the end of their shift and process them on overtime ,they had cops making well over $100k. They also scheme to let them bang as much overtime as possible in their last three years to pump up their pensions since their pensions is based on an average of their last three years.I know some retired cops in their 40's with $80k a year plus pensions for life. That's a big reason many cities are going broke.
 
Grant said:
If I remember correctly, In September, 2008 the Big Three asked for $50 billion to pay for health care expenses and avoid bankruptcy and ensuing layoffs, and Congress worked out a 25$ billion loan. By December, President Bush had agreed to an emergency bailout of $17.4 billion to be distributed by the Obama administration in January and February.
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I believe you are correct. I think the total today is about $50 billion for GM and Chrysler. And technically it was Congress that spent the money after Bush spent the original $15 - $17 billion out some emergency fund. What's a couple of billion anyway? Good money after bad.
 
offdutyfireman said:
Tony, That system wouldn't work at my old dep't as we were compensated with comp time, and who wants that? The reason you see an engine company on EMS calls is not to pad calls. Fire stations are built in closer proximity to each other than are ems stations due to ISO points and lower insurance premiums for the taxpayers. As a result an engine company can generally arrive on scene much quicker than an EMS unit. Not saying that the resulting volume of calls doesn't hurt come budget time. I can assure you that no firefighter enjoys running the headache call in the middle of the night and any other EMS call for that matter. At least I didn't.
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The absolute reson you see a fire engine on EMS calls is to pad the calls for service for the fire side of the department. EVERY fire agency in the united states sees far more EMS calls for service than fire calls. The fire departments saw that the fire side of the operation was loosing ground fast and to justify the engine complemet some firefighters were cross trained as paramedics and were put on engines with a basic are kit.
What that did was allow the fire engine to be dispatched for EMS calls.

The bad side is that now 600,000 dollar fire engines are being run into the ground for nothing while the 135,000 dollar ambulance that would be dispatched anyway is still sent since it is still the only thing that can provide care and transport a paitent to a hospital.
 
Alexy said:
The absolute reson you see a fire engine on EMS calls is to pad the calls for service for the fire side of the department. EVERY fire agency in the united states sees far more EMS calls for service than fire calls. The fire departments saw that the fire side of the operation was loosing ground fast and to justify the engine complemet some firefighters were cross trained as paramedics and were put on engines with a basic are kit.
What that did was allow the fire engine to be dispatched for EMS calls.

The bad side is that now 600,000 dollar fire engines are being run into the ground for nothing while the 135,000 dollar ambulance that would be dispatched anyway is still sent since it is still the only thing that can provide care and transport a paitent to a hospital.[/QUO

You are off on a few facts, but still close. It is not the absolute reason and not EVERY fire agency runs more EMS because not EVERY fire agency runs EMS. An ambulance is not the only thing that can provide care or transport. If the fire service could not provide care, they would not be rolling. Still, numbers justify payroll. Not saying it is a perfect sysytem.
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I guess the point of the whole thing is it's time to cut costs and instead of trying to make it as painless as possible, the unions are acting like it's 1950 and continuing to push for more and more.

I understand that this is their JOB - it's their responsibility to represent the workers. But it shows poor leadership to not recognize a completely lost battle. It would show equally poor leadership if they just laid down and took whatever the city said without at least an honest assessment of the situation and an attempt to see if there was money left on the table somewhere.
 
I can't speak for everyone and can say that here in Tallahassee I have never heard of that scam and if it was going on we still would not come close to $150,000 to 200,000. Also alot has to do with the dispatch here. If it is a CODE 2 call which is routine response then the fire department is not supposed to go but if it comes in as an actual EMERGENCY witch is a CODE 3 then we also go as William said we are closer a lot of the times but sometimes we will get there at the same time. The Fire Engine here has paramedics that ride on it and we also carry drugs incase there needed we can do anything and everything an ambulance can do other than transport. On wrecks most of the time we don't get all the information so we don't know if there is any extrication or anything else we are needed for. I won't even get on the Union issue we could talk about that till were blue in the face and still have not gotten anywhere.
 
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