Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Daniel Lawson on November 25, 2007 at 2:51pm

i have to agree although i am a volunteer still and the only reason i do that is because the vollies got me the job and they give me the training my comby dept doesnt. now that being said we are the only paid department in somerset county there is a city dept next to my township(where i vollie) but we dont respond with them mutual aid and if we do i refuse to go to their town because i dont go to other career areas. for other career guys to come into your comby dept its wrong they shouldnt do it and thats that. and if i ever move or if my town where i volly ever goes with career guys then i will stop being a member or not even join.

Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on December 11, 2007 at 8:54pm

I tend to agree with members that work at part time or vollie departments. I still do as well. However, I do not agree with members that work for combination departments part time that are trying to expand or get rid of the part timers in order to get more full time jobs. That I totally disagree with. We have even had local presidents call our president to stop guys from applying in order to help them get more full time slots and stop filling the part time slots with full time guys from other departments. If "we" work for vollie departments on the side, they are getting the benefit of our experience. Most of those departments would never be able to fill their ranks if it were not for the full time guys that work there also.

Permalink Reply by Chris Hayden on January 2, 2008 at 9:00pm

This is a very touchy subject. One route you could consider is presenting you city council with information in favor of a "more paid" department. Some of the key topics could be training, and how your paid people are much more valuable and much less of a liability to your city. Also, getting your ISO rating up would lower insurance rates and help homeowners as well as businesses inside your city. Of course there is always the response times and other obvious reasons. Another route to take would be to make it harder for people to volunteer, example: make the volunteers be held to a set amount of training hours and classes which would make it extremely dificult fot them to continue. Anyway, just my thoughts.

Permalink Reply by John Robinson on April 25, 2008 at 12:47am

Have you tried contacting the 3rd District VP to see if he can help you with this situation? This is the first place I would go for advice.

Good luck Chief.

Permalink Reply by David Caruana on April 29, 2008 at 4:28pm

I feel your pain. We have the same issue in the county I work in. Other jurisdictions around us are mostly all career depts, then there is my county that is mostly combination. The so called "union brothers" from the other jurisdictions come and play at night with the volunteers, and some treat the paid guys like crap. Our local sent a letter out a few years back to surrounding locals reminding them what the by-laws state. The other locals backed off their membership because their members basically said fine, we'll just quit the union. The only suggestion I have would be to send a letter to that city's local and ask them to have their membership rethink their activities off the clock.

Permalink Reply by Rich Ruehl on May 24, 2008 at 8:46am

We have the same problem here in Howard County, MD. Have dealt with it for years. I would probably be shot in the ass for saying this, but I don't worry a whole lot about the guys in our Local that volunteer somewhere like the Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland where there aren't any career departments and most of the towns are so small they are not able to generate enough revenue to support even a small career department. Those guys aren't the problem. But, the guys that leave Howard County and volunteer in surrounding, established, career/IAFF jurisdictions; the guys that work in those other career/IAFF jurisdictions and then come to Howard County to work part-time and volunteer - those are the guys that really makes things bad for us.

What I have told our folks is this: it's obvous that you aren't going to stop doing it just because we ask you to or we remind you of the C&B of the IAFF. So, you know what, do what you are going to do anyway. If at some point in the future it becomes necessary to file charges against you in order to further the progress of our Local, then sorry about your luck; you've been made aware. In the mean time, at least do the right thing and understand that YOUR BREAD IS BUTTERED BY YOUR PAYCHECK and NOT by your volunteer work, and when we need help supporting political candidates that, if elected, will help improve our pay and benefits, make sure you come out and help. When we face a threat to our negotiated agreements and we are going to lobby our asses off to make sure that the CBA is honored, make sure that you are there to help with that.

In the end, that's all that I ask for. We will not be able to change the minds of the folks who think that they owe something to the volunteer fire departments that, "got me the job." If those same folks do nothing more than support the Local Union that supports them, I personally think that is all we can hope for.

I know this will not be a very popular opinion, especially coming from a Local Union President. But trying to change our own folks minds almost crippled our Local eight years ago. I would much rather have the support of folks and be able to muster people toward a common goal (political efforts that lead to great contracts and benefits) than to create a couple of dozen enemies within the organization. They end up like cancers that spread via their poor attitudes.

Some folks will never be true blue Union guys. But as long as they understand that their families are supported by their paychecks and their health benefits, which come from their "career" job, then I am not goingto spend a lot of time in their faces about the other stuff.

Just my opinion.

Rich Ruehl
President, Local 2000
Howard County, Maryland

Permalink Reply by Engine 32 Capt. on May 26, 2008 at 12:09am

In Jefferson County (Louisville, KY), we have City Fire (Louisville), and then suburban fire which is outside the city limits providing service for the rest of Jefferson County.

We are a fairly small local, but I attribute this to the fact that Kentucky is a "right-to-work" state, and the suburban fire districts don't have to (and don't) recognize our local. While we have approximately 300 paid fire fighters and 2000 +/- volunteers, our local has only about 80 members. Most guys feel like they don't need to waste their money on dues if we aren't being recognized. However, that's another issue that I'll save for another day.

Suburban Fire is made up of several (19) individual taxing districts. Our tax rate is antiquated, and most departments are maxed out on their operating budgets. While most departments operate with full time, 24/48 staffing, they also supplement their staff with part-time help. Because of the budget issues we face, this is the only practical way to increase staffing to safer levels.

A lot of people who work full time at one department work part time at another. They do it to supplement their income, and as I said it helps with staffing levels. This is a recognized and acceptable practice here. However, volunteering at a suburban department while working as a career member is widely known to be taboo, and to my knowledge we don't have anyone doing it. It is frowned upon, and I believe that everyone understands that.

We do have career members that volunteer outside of Jefferson County, perhaps in the district in which they reside, but these departments are typically rural and couldn't afford career staff anyway.

In short - I think it's ok to volunteer elsewhere, where career staff doesn't exist. At least you know that community is getting quality service. But to volunteer at a department that has career staffing...That is wrong.

Just my two cents. Stay safe out there Brothers.

Rich Bliven
VP IAFF Local 3972

Permalink Reply by Rich Ruehl on May 26, 2008 at 3:32pm

I agree with you Bro. Bliven. I also forgot to mention what is probably most heinous in my book; the fact that we have about 8-10 members who work for Howard County Fire & Rescue (career) and volunteer at one of the 6 volunteer departments WITHIN Howard County. You see, our department - like many others - developed from what was a rural community protected by 6 independent volunteer corporations. When Howard County made the switch to a charter form of government in 1971 (I think) the Department of Fire & Rescue was formed. The part-time employees who worked for the individual corporations were hired by the county.

Since then, as time has gone on and volunteers are available less - and in some cases even less capable - the county has hired career firefighters to supplement. In fact, until 6 years ago, you couldn't get a single local politician to admit that the department had switched from a volunteer department supplemented by career staff to a career department supplemented by volunteers. In 2008 we are CLEARLY a career department with volunteers hanging on by threads. I have absolutely no disrespect for any volunteer. Period. I just don't like the fact that in Howard County they are treated as if they make a larger contribution than is reality. Trust me when I tell you; if every volunteer in Howard County hung up their boots tomorrow, the citizens would NOT see a change in their fire and rescue service. Within hours we would be up and running at the only station that is still "all volunteer" in the western end of the county. Now, would the county and the department be hurting on a Friday night if we had a working fire and 6 ALS calls going on at the same time? Sure we would. And it is in those situations that having volunteers to supplement works out very well. But when the volunteers have their own rank structure and their volunteer chiefs are higher in rank than a 25 year battalion chief, I have a problem with that.

Anyway, that's my two cents right now.

Rich Ruehl, President
IAFF Local 2000
Howard County, Maryland

Permalink Reply by Engine 32 Capt. on May 28, 2008 at 12:40am

Wow Brother Ruehl. It seems as if we are barking up the same tree.

Our department puts a lot of emphasis on volunteers. But the bottem line is (and the argument I make ); If the volunteers stopped showing up, would it make a difference? The answer in our district is N O. We have had numerous structure runs in our district and haven't gotten a single volunteer piece out. Our response comes from our duty crews and our automatic aid (duty crews).

We are moving toward making our vollies do "duty hours". This means ride with a company and be a productive member or stay home.

Need more info on this program, let me know.

IAFF always and forever.

Permalink Reply by Rich Ruehl on May 28, 2008 at 10:49am

Bro. Bliven, how is your department set up? Are all of your fire stations volunteer owned? Is there a mix between volunteer owned and county/department owned? (In Howard County we have 7 stations that are owned by the volunteeers and 4 stations that are owned by the county) Do your folks work out of the volunteer owned stations? (In Howard County there are at least 5 firefighters - 3 for the engine and two for the medic transport - in every station; to include the volunteer owned stations. The only exception is teh Lisbon Volunteer station in the western end of the county that is 90% volunteer and they pay part-timers to be cover the medic unit 24/7).

Here is a breakdown of our stations and staffing.

Station 1 (Elkridge VFD) - 6 Career Personnel 24/7 (2 for medic, 4 for engine or squad which is cross-staffed)

Station 2 (Ellicott City VFD) - 9 Career Personel (2 for medic, 3 for engine, 4 for tower and squad which are cross-staffed)

Station 3 (West Friendship VFD) - 4 personnel [one of whom is often a part-timer who is a card carrying union member from a neighboring county] (2 for medic unit, 2 for engine)

Station 4 (Lisbon VFC) - 2 personnel [only because we mandated that when a union member is detailed there, a second union member must go with him/her] (2 for medic unit)

Station 5 (Clarksville VFD) - 6 Career Personnel (2 for medic unit, 4 for engine - the extra firefighter will drive the squad if necessary)

Station 6 (Savage VFD) - 6 Career Personnel (2 for medic, 4 for engine or truck which are cross-staffed)

Station 7 (County-owned) - 9 Career Personnel (2 for medic unit, 3 for engine, 4 for truck)

Station 8 (Ellicott City VFD Bethany Station) - 5 Career Personnel (2 for the medic, 3 for the engine)

Station 9 (County-owned) - 7 Career Personnel (2 for medic unit, 2 for BLS transport, 3 for engine)

Station 10 (County-owned) - 10 Career Personnel (2 for medic unit, 3 for engine, 4 for truck, 1 for special vehicles NOTE: This is our Special Operations House

Station 11 (County-owned) - 6 Career Personnel (2 foe medic unit, 3 for engine, 1 for tanker)

I will post some more info later.

Permalink Reply by Engine 32 Capt. on May 28, 2008 at 8:13pm

The county fire stations are divided into taxing districts. The taxing districts are governed by Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS).

There are 19 districts in Jefferson County (not including Louisville City Fire). Each district is ran by a board of trustees (19 districts, 19 Boards...).

Each district has anywhere from 1 station to as many as 7. I think there are 56 (+/-) stations in Jefferson County. These are not "volunteer" owned, they are owned by the taxing district in which they are located.

Some of these stations are manned 24/48 with career staff, with volunteers who respond on calls. Some of the stations are not manned at all and utilize a strictly volunteer response. In our district, we have two firehouses. The one I work at (we staff a 3-person Engine Co 24/48) does not have any volunteer response whatsoever. They all respond out of our other station (staffed with a 4-person Quint Co 24/48). We are a career department, supplemented by volunteers. Other districts are the opposite.

Each district also has its own Fire Chief, Asst Chiefs and so on. Basically, it's an F-in mess.

In an ideal world, all of the county protection districts would merge into one, and Louisville could have "City" fire and "County" fire. However, it would take a revision of KRS to abolish the districts, in addition to getting each of the Chiefs to give up their little kingdoms. It's probably not going to happen during my career.

EMS is a metro Louisville agency. We do not have ambulances in the fire houses nor do we transport. We do respond to medical calls as a BLS provider due to our quicker response times.

Hope that gives you an idea of how we operate around here. It's messed up, but it's all we got right now.

Permalink Reply by Mike Kilburg on June 20, 2008 at 12:37am

I think it is only fair that all these Volunteer / Combo/ POC/ Part-time etc. departments pay a percentage into Firefighter pension funds. You know,the funds who pay for your presumptive illnesses and disability benefits. Wake up folks. Too much fire department is not good for you. These departments are getting a free ride. They weaken your executive boards ability to bargain while YOUR PAID JOB and YOUR UNION are carrying the weight of your benefits for them. Huge problem in Chicagoland. There are no volunteers. Just greedy "Brothers" who make my job a heck of a lot harder around negotiation time.

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