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Firefighters union douses volunteerism
Please let's get this out to as many folks as we can. You don't need to agree or disagree, just please read it and let's begin the discussions. Let's get ides out there about whether anything should be done about it.
I think it should be resisted at all cost, but how do volunteers take up the fight?
Firefighters union douses volunteerism
James Sherk
Heritage Foundation
October 9, 2007
You probably haven't heard that Congress is about to shut down many of America's volunteer fire departments. Not intentionally, perhaps. Yet a little-known bill advancing through Congress would do just that.
Nearly 26,000 volunteer fire departments protect tens of millions of Americans and their homes from fires. Almost three out of every four firefighters in the United States are volunteers, and smaller towns and cities call on them for protection. A town with 3,000 residents simply cannot afford the expense of hiring full-time career firefighters. They rely on volunteers.
These volunteer departments are usually anchored by a core of professional career firefighters. Often they work in another city and volunteer to protect their neighbors in their off-duty hours. Volunteer firefighters risk their lives and sacrifice their time for their communities. Who would want to shut them down?
The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), that's who. The IAFF represents career firefighters. Volunteers who give their time and efforts to their communities allow many communities to do without full-time career fire departments. This means fewer jobs for career firefighters, and fewer dues-paying members in the union that represents them. So the IAFF does everything in its power to stop "two-hatters" from volunteering.
The IAFF constitution prohibits its members from belonging to a volunteer fire department. In the words of IAFF President Harold Schaitberger, the decision to volunteer is a personal choice, but "that personal choice is one that can have serious consequences under our Constitution." Union members who disobey face steep union fines that the courts will enforce. In some cities, the IAFF negotiates, on its members' behalf, contracts stating that they will lose their job if they volunteer in their off-duty hours.
The union's effort to ban volunteering is an assault on our civic fabric. Doctors who provide free care to the poor, lawyers who work pro bono for the disadvantaged, and firefighters who volunteer for their communities make America a better country.
Without career firefighters willing to give their time, many volunteer fire departments would have to close. Look at Connecticut. The IAFF negotiated "no-volunteering" clauses in the contracts of every major city there. Now many of the state's volunteer fire departments are having difficulty finding enough volunteers to protect their communities. Some cities have had to raise taxes significantly to hire career firefighters – exactly what the IAFF intended.
Enter the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would make it significantly easier for the IAFF to shut down volunteer fire departments. The bill, which passed the House and is before the Senate, has nothing to do with employer-employee cooperation. This bill requires every state and local government to collectively bargain with their police officers and firefighters, and to negotiate virtually every term and condition of employment.
Those states that have decided collective bargaining doesn't meet their needs would have to do so anyway. States that currently limit what they negotiate would have to negotiate almost everything – including "no-volunteering" clauses.
If this bill passes and forces every local government to collectively bargain with its firefighters, the IAFF's membership rolls will swell and the union will have enhanced powers to negotiate away the freedom of its members to volunteer. Many career firefighters who want to serve their community will lose the ability to do so, unless they want to lose their jobs.
Recognizing that concerns for volunteer firefighters could sink the bill, its supporters added a provision specifying that private sector collective bargaining agreements cannot prevent workers from volunteering. Since virtually every firefighter works for the government and not in the private sector, this actually does nothing to protect volunteer firefighters. But it sounds good.
Instead of adding meaningless provisions that do nothing to defend firefighters' right to volunteer, Congress should let local communities decide if collective bargaining is right for them. Many communities have decided that it is. But others, concerned about how unions would attack their volunteer firefighters, have not. Congress should not make it easier for the IAFF to punish firefighters for volunteering to protect their neighbors.
I think it should be resisted at all cost, but how do volunteers take up the fight?
Firefighters union douses volunteerism
James Sherk
Heritage Foundation
October 9, 2007
You probably haven't heard that Congress is about to shut down many of America's volunteer fire departments. Not intentionally, perhaps. Yet a little-known bill advancing through Congress would do just that.
Nearly 26,000 volunteer fire departments protect tens of millions of Americans and their homes from fires. Almost three out of every four firefighters in the United States are volunteers, and smaller towns and cities call on them for protection. A town with 3,000 residents simply cannot afford the expense of hiring full-time career firefighters. They rely on volunteers.
These volunteer departments are usually anchored by a core of professional career firefighters. Often they work in another city and volunteer to protect their neighbors in their off-duty hours. Volunteer firefighters risk their lives and sacrifice their time for their communities. Who would want to shut them down?
The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), that's who. The IAFF represents career firefighters. Volunteers who give their time and efforts to their communities allow many communities to do without full-time career fire departments. This means fewer jobs for career firefighters, and fewer dues-paying members in the union that represents them. So the IAFF does everything in its power to stop "two-hatters" from volunteering.
The IAFF constitution prohibits its members from belonging to a volunteer fire department. In the words of IAFF President Harold Schaitberger, the decision to volunteer is a personal choice, but "that personal choice is one that can have serious consequences under our Constitution." Union members who disobey face steep union fines that the courts will enforce. In some cities, the IAFF negotiates, on its members' behalf, contracts stating that they will lose their job if they volunteer in their off-duty hours.
The union's effort to ban volunteering is an assault on our civic fabric. Doctors who provide free care to the poor, lawyers who work pro bono for the disadvantaged, and firefighters who volunteer for their communities make America a better country.
Without career firefighters willing to give their time, many volunteer fire departments would have to close. Look at Connecticut. The IAFF negotiated "no-volunteering" clauses in the contracts of every major city there. Now many of the state's volunteer fire departments are having difficulty finding enough volunteers to protect their communities. Some cities have had to raise taxes significantly to hire career firefighters – exactly what the IAFF intended.
Enter the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would make it significantly easier for the IAFF to shut down volunteer fire departments. The bill, which passed the House and is before the Senate, has nothing to do with employer-employee cooperation. This bill requires every state and local government to collectively bargain with their police officers and firefighters, and to negotiate virtually every term and condition of employment.
Those states that have decided collective bargaining doesn't meet their needs would have to do so anyway. States that currently limit what they negotiate would have to negotiate almost everything – including "no-volunteering" clauses.
If this bill passes and forces every local government to collectively bargain with its firefighters, the IAFF's membership rolls will swell and the union will have enhanced powers to negotiate away the freedom of its members to volunteer. Many career firefighters who want to serve their community will lose the ability to do so, unless they want to lose their jobs.
Recognizing that concerns for volunteer firefighters could sink the bill, its supporters added a provision specifying that private sector collective bargaining agreements cannot prevent workers from volunteering. Since virtually every firefighter works for the government and not in the private sector, this actually does nothing to protect volunteer firefighters. But it sounds good.
Instead of adding meaningless provisions that do nothing to defend firefighters' right to volunteer, Congress should let local communities decide if collective bargaining is right for them. Many communities have decided that it is. But others, concerned about how unions would attack their volunteer firefighters, have not. Congress should not make it easier for the IAFF to punish firefighters for volunteering to protect their neighbors.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Brinkley on
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Good Luck:
I hope you have the right to bargain in good faith soon
Stay Safe,
Lt Dan
IAFF 19 years
Started as a volunteer
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Dude wake up:
We negotiate everything, Money staffing, equipment out of srvice, Overtime, and yes training issues.
If it aint in the contract it doesnt happen.
Chiefs and administration will short cut everything, and believe it or not we (The IAFF) are very Saftey conscious and dont/wont stand for it w/o a fight.
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Permalink Reply by Joel C Kelley on
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Absolutely not! I never intended to say that collective bargaining was some kind of societal ill, merely to put questions out for discussion, and I think we have gotten a lot of good discussion about a very divisive issue. Nor do I think that IAFF is outwardly anti-volunteer. But I do think, and nobody has come out to deny it, that IAFF feels volunteers are a threat to its agenda. I think CBA's and the IAFF are a great way to guarantee the security and work conditions of paid personnel, which it does not do for volunteers. If IAFF valued the Volunteer service, it would offer them the same protections that career personnel have.
Is there a Branch of the IAFF for volunteers that I don't know about?
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I'm with Zack. What is so awful about a career FF volunteering on his or her off duty time? If IAFF claims to support their members, shouldn't they allow this practice rather than prohibit it?
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No
However Some Volunteers inadvertenly enjoy benefits that IAFF department mebers enjoy
ie Combination Departments
The IAFF doesn't look generally at Volunteers as as a threat, However some volunteers become threats becauseof their actions and/or inactions
Stay Safe
Lt Dan
19 years IAFF
Started as a volunteer
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence W on
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I personally think that the clause in question is an attempt by the IAFF to mandate that its membership not be allowed to volunteer on their personal time. This has been a clause in the IAFF bylaws for many years. This new bill is an attempt to make this aspect of their bylaws a federal law. They are attempting to hide it in their move to collective bargaining in all areas of career fire service.
While this will not directly affect the volunteer fire service, it will reduce the number of volunteers by barring some current volunteers from their stations. Personally, I think this is an invasion of an IAFF members right to do with their time as they see fit. If the government came in to tell me that I couldn't do something in my personal time, I would go off the handle, I'm sure.
If anyone should be upset about this issue, it should be the members of the IAFF that choose to volunteer their time in their communities, not the volunteer that works in another industry. Volunteer fire departments have been around for a very long time and they are not likely to be going anywhere anytime soon. The cost would be more than the taxpayers could bear...
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Permalink Reply by steve price on
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i volunteer for a combination dept. and 90% of the career staff are members of the volunteer companies including the chief and a volunteer was just hired into the career division and unfortunately the union by-laws prevent us from responding to ems calls
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Permalink Reply by howard on
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im a volunteer and have been for 15 years. i live in a small town where we have 4 other fire depts plus the one im on. if it wasnt for us volunteering we wouldnt have the protection we need. are town cant afford to payus, its just to small. so if they stop the volunteers a lot of pple wil be hurting in more ways than one. they dpend on us to keep them safe.
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Permalink Reply by Allen Wahlstrom on
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Grew up in a volunteer family, have been on 3 vollie departments and paid since 1986.
So to start, I am a union menber always have been, and always will be.
I am also a republican and therefore make up my own mind as to what I will and wont do..and that goes for voting as well.
There is a place in this country for both paid and vollie departments. That said if I live in a large suburban city with high taxes I fully expect a FULLY STAFFED fire department 24/7/365 and as a tax payer that is my right.
However having lived in small towns that dont have the tax base to pay for a career fire department, I volunteered, because that is what I would expect of any other trained professional to do. How can I expect someone else to get up from thanksgiving dinner if I wont???
Again having sid that...her eis what happens if vollies go away in towns that dont have taxbase to support career personnel...
Contract Fire Companies...or more realistically subscription fire companies. What is that you ask...well folks let me esplain...not too much, lemme sum up.
Each house pays $400 a year for fire protection, if you dont and there is a fire. They will make entry to protect life...but set up supression on the houses closest that have paid their subscription and let your house BURN. You think I jest, but Savannah GA is or at least was partially subscription in the early 90's and the rest of the county still is as far as I know, and that was the way it worked. Oh and they still had vollies to do the grunt work.
Not everywhere can afford paid fire protection...and the IAFF is not my daddy, so I will do as I see fit for my family and my community.
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there was a subscritpion service in rye brook ny but they folded and left the city 30 days to build a career dept. from the begining, trucks and equipment included
i agree there is room for both paid and unpaid professionals regardless of the size of the city, town or village
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Permalink Reply by Todd on
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"While non-volunteering clauses are a possibility I think most of these departments would put this way down on the priority list when they finally get the chance to negotiate things like salary, retirement, health care, working conditions, shift configurations etc."
It's evidently a high priority in some places. Several Connecticut departments have already made a "no volunteer" clause part of their contracts. Resolution 43 in Prince George's County. Numerous cases out there where the IAFF locals have pushed for volunteer departments being banned from mutual aid agreements.
"The IAFF doesn't look generally at Volunteers as as a threat"
Then why has the IAFF adopted the position that volunteer fire departments are "rival organizations"? You generally don't call soeone a rival unless you see them as a threat.
I'm willing to put money on the fact that if this bill passes and right to work states are forced to recognize unions that one of the first actions that the IAFF does is send the mandate from on high that "no volunteer" clauses are to be negotiated in the very first contract negotiations.
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ABSOLUTELY!!!!!
But this business of Paid guys keeping themselves on a higher rung than a volunteer is not going to unify us as a brotherhood any time soon. My first captain used to say, "They bury a volunteer just as deep as they bury a paid guy." Yet some paid guys think their shit doesn't stink, and ride around in the rig with attitude that glows from fifty feet away.
The fires are no hotter for paid guys, the rescues are no more difficult, the medicals are no less tedious, so what is it the uniform? I haven't gotten it in sixteen years of volunteering.
I was unaware of "subsciption fire service" till now but it sounds like a lousy way to make a buck in the modern world. Even two centuries ago when fire companies responded and only worked certain insurance backed jobs, based on the hallmark on the building, it was not a great way to run things.
Wahlstrom thinks that vol.s will go away and be replaced by Contract companies without realizing that a paid fire department is to some degree a contract company. Their revenue is funneled through their administrating authority and is collected on a mandatory basis, but it seems that most folks don't mind, at least in my experience, paying a little more property tax to have the security of fire protection.
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