Scranton's firefighter union traditionally has been a well-oiled overtime machine. Its members often have racked up vast amounts of sweet OT as a matter of routine, rather than strictly due to emergencies. Firefighters were paid nearly $1 million in overtime in 2010, for example.
Now, however, with the city government facing a financial crisis partially created by preposterous arbitration awards to firefighters, most union members have begun to refuse overtime.
Union officials claim the decisions to reject overtime have been made by individuals rather than orchestrated by the union as a form of political pressure against the Doherty administration.
Mayor Chris Doherty's proposed budget includes the layoffs of 29 firefighters, which would bring the ranks to 100.
Given the assertion that the overtime refusal is not orchestrated, it must be a coincidence that the trend began with the city's layoff of eight firefighters in August.
Regardless of whether the overtime refusal is orchestrated, it flies in the face of years of union officials' rhetoric. For years, they embraced easy OT while contending that it simply was necessary in the cause of public safety.
Now that the administration has responded to the financial crisis with the only means available, and has sought to fill in gaps with overtime, union members aren't interested.
But, of course, it's not really about public safety. It's about politics.
Some were wondering what the smaller area do. Most of the out lying areas are volunteer companies.
They take the same classes and go through the same test as the city fire fighters. Maybe you citizens in the city don't realize how lucky you are to have someone available 24/7 365 days a year. I agree with the fire fighters that they need to get paid for their job just like any other person working. How many of you would have stayed at your job if you hadn't gotten a raise in 8 years?
Now to the point. In the out lying areas where there are voluteer companies we have what we call a mutual aid. If anything big comes up or alarms go off for schools, nursing homes, and the such the mutual aid is put into action. That means for each company there are several other nearby companies that assist their company. Then you have several nearby companies that rotate to their stations in case of vehicle accidents to make sure there is coverage.
Let's take this one step more. Let's paint this scene like this. It is 5:00 PM in the middle of December. The tones go off for a barn fire which is close to the house and garage. The barn has animals in it. and you don't know what kind. You were just sitting down to eat after getting home from your day job. You go to head out the door and it is slippery from freezing rain. You are 4 minutes away from the station in normal conditions. You get to the fire station and you hear that it is fully engulfed in the loft area. You call for a full response and for mutual aid to assist your company. This could take anywhere from 10 minutes to 1/2 hour depending on how far each company has to travel as well as the weather conditions they are coming across to assist you. Barn fires can take a very long time to put out but we will say it took 6 hours to get it under control and then another 2 hours to finish up. It is now 1:00 AM and you have to go back to the station and fill the trucks up with gas as well as water so they will be ready. You make it home by 2:00 AM and you have to take a shower get to bed and get up in 3 1/2 hours and go to your day job again. I know that some of the fire fighters were volunteers before they went to Scranton. I hope the rest of you can get what I am talking about.
It is good that they all help one another but the draw back is that they are volunteer which means most of them work during the day. This also means since they are volunteers you never know how many are going to be available or show up on a sub zero night in the freezing rain. Most of the voluteers are a good group of men and women but they have families just like these fire fighters. When they go on a call you never know what they will run into and how long they will be. Many holiday festivities had to be put on hold until they came back from calls.
In case you don't realize that every time they relocate, have brown outs, or close a fire station that is valuable time being lost. When they have to travel longer and are under staffed it puts more work on them. I am talking about having people to rotate out when their tanks are running out of air and they need to rest but they change tanks and keep going. The mayor is putting these fire fighters and the public in a very dangerous position.
I hope this answered some of your questions on how smaller companies do it.
Maybe if you asked some of the firemen they would also be happy to answer your questions and tell you what the pit falls are in what the Mayor is doing. Some could also tell you the pros and cons of volunteer versus paid fire fighters.
Keep the faith guys.
The question that Underdog is NOT addressing in his topic is the elephant in the room. this is what volunteer companies do and it is right on target. they also don't get $70,000/year, free health care, kelly days and all the other contract perks that go along with it. they have regular jobs, families, etc. and STILL respond to these calls and go to work on schedule. Those guys and gals are my heroes. They have no assurance of coming home either. Don't get me wrong, there are bad apples in every bunch, but they handle the same emergencies as the paid guys.
Barn fires can take a very long time to put out but we will say it took 6 hours to get it under control and then another 2 hours to finish up. It is now 1:00 AM and you have to go back to the station and fill the trucks up with gas as well as water so they will be ready. You make it home by 2:00 AM and you have to take a shower get to bed and get up in 3 1/2 hours and go to your day job again. I know that some of the fire fighters were volunteers before they went to Scranton. I hope the rest of you can get what I am talking about.
The Underdog's firefighter exapmple doesn't have a sick day he can use from his second job in this case? A manager who understands extenuating circumstances? A phone so he can call someone and switch shifts at the store?
It's not like barns containing rabid hungry lions and poisonous snakes routinely go up in flames only when it's dark, 4 degrees outside, it's been raining all day, Cousin Eddie and the rest of the Griswolds have just arrived at your house hours earlier expecting a full course turkey dinner the next day, and take 12 hours to put out. This is so out of the ordinary that it's comical to even bring it up. "If God is so strong, can He make a rock so heavy that even HE can't lift it?" Carlin did that bit almost 50 years ago, and it was old then. At least be original.
Who knew The Underdog was Dave Gervasi? Only a union official could come up with such an unlikely scare tactic. That's the stupidest "what-if" that's been posted on DD in a long, long time. Thanks for the laugh.
