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Do You Believe It's Ethical to Mandate Volunteer Work?
I've been thinking about this for awhile. I LOVE the volunteer service, as I love serving my community and helping people in need.
My department is a combination department in a couple of different ways. We have EMS integrated into our department (EMS calls are about 90% of our calls epr year), and we have paid EMS First Responders, however all of the firefighters are volunteer.
At night there is obviously a hinderance of turn-out (this mostly pertains to EMS calls), so my department has mandated that certain members MUST respond overnight from 2200-0500 for any EMS call that comes out. We call these "Squad Nights". Please accept my apology if this is common knowledge already.
Generally a person assigned to these nights have been in the department under 5 years. There are three slots per night, every night, and they are all filled (Driver, EMT, Aids Person).
I can understand mandating a certain amount of calls per year, and a certain amount of trainings, but mandating a certain time-frame in which certain members MUST respond?
Take into account a lot of people work the normal hours of about 9am-5pm, so it's understandable as to why people don't respond. And don't get me wrong, I've done a lot for overnights. When I wasn't working full-time and worked part-time at night I would do many, many overnight calls.
There's an obvious hierarchy of responsiblities:
1.) Family and Friends
2.) Work
3.) Volunteering
My question to you, the Firehouse community, is: Do you believe it's ethical to mandate VOLUNTEER work?
My department is a combination department in a couple of different ways. We have EMS integrated into our department (EMS calls are about 90% of our calls epr year), and we have paid EMS First Responders, however all of the firefighters are volunteer.
At night there is obviously a hinderance of turn-out (this mostly pertains to EMS calls), so my department has mandated that certain members MUST respond overnight from 2200-0500 for any EMS call that comes out. We call these "Squad Nights". Please accept my apology if this is common knowledge already.
Generally a person assigned to these nights have been in the department under 5 years. There are three slots per night, every night, and they are all filled (Driver, EMT, Aids Person).
I can understand mandating a certain amount of calls per year, and a certain amount of trainings, but mandating a certain time-frame in which certain members MUST respond?
Take into account a lot of people work the normal hours of about 9am-5pm, so it's understandable as to why people don't respond. And don't get me wrong, I've done a lot for overnights. When I wasn't working full-time and worked part-time at night I would do many, many overnight calls.
There's an obvious hierarchy of responsiblities:
1.) Family and Friends
2.) Work
3.) Volunteering
My question to you, the Firehouse community, is: Do you believe it's ethical to mandate VOLUNTEER work?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John M. Scheibel on
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Hi Andrew;
I agree with Paul..but I also think that Those Mandated Time Slots, also are your Mandate Calls you are required. This may sound crazy, but maybe the Volunteer Service needs to look at an "Hours on Call" versus "A Percentage of Calls" mentality. Now before everyone "jumps my bones".. There might be a Two Tone System that is needed here; ONE being the "People On Call" and another for an "ALL CALL General Alarm", ie Structure Fires, MVA, or anything that needs more than the 3-4 FF's On Call to serve the Community Protected. The "ALL CALL ALARM" mightbe the one with a Quota system in place. If everyone shares the wealth, it could be like a "Doctor's appointment"..you get to choose the Time Slot you want..and if no one takes the slot, you rever back to the ALL CALL SYSTEM.. Change is Hard, but so is the Lack of people and everyone having to be knocked around for the lack of Help..!!
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Permalink Reply by Fabulous Heather Days of Summer on
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The driver is the golf club of choice when driving
The EMT picks up the EMTies
The Aids person hands out band aids
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The fire service is considered to be para-military ... with officers, seniority and command.
Those in the military VOLUNTEER to be in the service - but after that first moment of signing up... ALL ELSE IS ORDERED UPON THEM !!!
Some fire departments feel strongly about following such rigor.
The military is not fair or balanced - and certainly the senior staff are not held to the same workload as the newbies. Work your way up through the ranks... just like everyone else did.
"Ethical" Websters Dictionary says "conforming to professional standards of conduct"
- so yes, it probably is professional in this setting. Just as another professional conduct in our field is working longer than 8 hours without normal breaks and lunches - while the rest of the modern world gets MANDATORY breaks every 4 hours. I have never seen people pulled over a fire scene for their mandatory breaks. And I am sure soldiers are not permitted to crawl out of their foxhole for coffee and a candybar or cigarette every 4 hours. LOL
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Permalink Reply by John Carder on
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There is a wide range of departments out there. It sounds like your department has a lot of calls and more than enough volunteers, so this is an option. If a department is going to take that route, I would suggest that they require a certain number of shifts per year, but let the volunteer firefighter choose the shifts that work with his schedule.
Our department is at the other extreme. We average about one call a day (over 120 square miles of district), and have about 20-30 volunteer firefighters. What I've noticed is that we end up with a variation on the 80/20 Pareto rule: Typically five to seven firefighters are responsible for over half of all the firefighter responses. That seems to be true of most volunteer organizations. There is a core group that does most of the work. Every response is appreciated, but some can only respond a few times and others respond a lot.
I have a real problem with the concept of assigning a shift to a volunteer. It flies in the face of the concept of volunteering. I understand requiring shifts (if it applies to everyone equally), but let the volunteer be involved in the decision of which shifts are his.
I agree with Paul that only making those with 5 years or less do the shifts is wrong, and smacks of a GOBN.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Those in the military VOLUNTEER to be in the service - but after that first moment of signing up... ALL ELSE IS ORDERED UPON THEM !!!
Some fire departments feel strongly about following such rigor.
Difference is the military first, has a very stringent set of tests to even be able to get in. Secondly, after signing that contract they are also PAID for their service. Yes, everything else does become moot, but there is still a lot of downtime etc in the military when one isn't in a combat/deployed situation. There are also many benefits bestowed upon the military from education, hazard pay, leave, health/dental coverage (including family) etc, to veteran benefits one still gets after getting out.
The point is that there is still compensation involved in the military despite it being a volunteer occupation to get in. Here you have a fire dept mandating coverage in the guise of "Volunteerism" trying to forego the fact they should compensate if making mandates. If you are truly volunteer, the only mandates would be with training issues anything else is a request....mandating coverage no longer is volunteer and as such fair compensation should be given.....and a Best Buy discount doesn't equate to fair.
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Someone still has to answer to the towns-people and often to city council for monies for equipment. Maybe they build confidence from their city council and the towns people by having a written schedule during the night.
And do I personally think a department SHOULD do it - NO, because it pisses people off - and that is not good for keeping volunteers - as you point out - the compensation sucks !!!
Community groups, like churches and PTA, like to know which volunteers will show up to host events - and they ask for people to sign up. Perhaps this has not worked on this department?
As far as equality - there is none. Seniority is just that ! If things are shared more fairly it is by the grace of the participants.
[Best Buy discount - LOL - that covers the whole topic !]
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Money for equipment doesn't always necessarily come from the city council. It is the responsibilty of a governing body to have police and fire protection, but how they supply it is up to them. When choosing to go volunteer, it is also a risk involved that there may be a delay. This is also why there are MA agreements. Someone probably will respond, what you get and how long it takes, could mean the difference.
When an organization starts to MANDATE anything, then the volunteer portion goes bye bye. You are no longer being considered a volunteer if you are mandated to do something. Having sign up sheets and asking people to work when they can is one thing. Mandating they sign up and not give compensation is another.
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I've been around on the days - when NO ONE responded. It happens.
Community enemies are bad for practice. It is probably easier to mandate staff than to defend against a lawsuit.
When we sign up to volunteer - we sign up for all that that individual department requires - we don't really get the luxury of picking and choosing what mandates we like and what ones we don't.
And like I said - it pisses the volunteers off.
Please don't get me wrong - I did not say it was fair and I did not say it was right. I was just exploring where the department policies may spring from.
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I've been around on the days - when NO ONE responded. It happens
Yes, it does, and that is the risk a community takes with having a volunteer dept, plain and simple.
Community enemies are bad for practice. It is probably easier to mandate staff than to defend against a lawsuit
How do you defend against a dept resigning because of what can be claimed as unfair mandates? How do you attract new personnel when pushing such mandates? It is probably cheaper to pay some type of stipend to be on duty than to defend against a lawsuit or worry about people leaving.
When we sign up to volunteer - we sign up for all that that individual department requires - we don't really get the luxury of picking and choosing what mandates we like and what ones we don't.
That may be your individual dept too. How often have you seen volunteers on this site saying they are or have "exterior only" personnel and so forth? Some depts will not differentiate like that, but in the end a volunteer dept is comprised of having people "hopefully" show for a response. When you start mandating people respond, you are no longer asking them to volunteer, you are now telling them and if so, they should receive compensation.
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Good points John.
Here in Canada.. there really is not many true volunteer depts. anymore. Sure there are some, but most of the ones I know, are actually Paid on Call. or paid call depts. While many would say they don't get much, and others would say what they make is turned into equipment funds, and still some just have huge parties once in while. I know my former dept. was paid over $20.00 per hour or any part there of, for calls AND practices. Hard to call those volunteers though. It is a tough thought, and will be interested to see what way the vollie service takes down the road. Obviously small communities are in no position to afford a full time dept.and really count on the likes ofthe vollies to save their (_!_) many times over. What gets me, is these same communities simply do not appreciate the job vollies do, or at best.. don't show it very well, lack of equipment, basics, lack of funding etc etc. even the smallest org. needs some sort of funding, yet many times I see on here, ff actually trying to buy their own gear because the community can't or won't. I guess the bottom line is, if mandating has worked in the past, and is part of the history of the dept.. then it's something the newcomers have to decide. If they want to be firefighters - they have to decide how bad they want it, and what they are willing to do for it. tough one though.
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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on
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Andrew, Unions are about employers taking advantage of employees, and the employees doing something to stop them. What makes you think the people that run a volunteer department are any different than those that run a paid department. Ethic's do not matter, money does. They will take advantage of you as long as you let them. In a volunteer environment the only options are work to change the system, shut up or quit. Good luck.
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