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Pennsylvania Town Switches To Volunteers; Chief, Career Staff To Be Laid Off
Tribune-Review
Uniontown has notified its entire paid fire department that all six members and the chief will be out of jobs by the end of the year, with volunteers to take their place.
In a letter sent Wednesday to the International Association of Firefighters Local 955, Councilman Gary Gearing notified firefighters the layoffs will be complete by Dec. 31, when the next contract expires.
City council voted Tuesday to notify the fire department of the intended layoffs. Mayor Ed Fike said the move is intended to save money.
Fike said although the fire department recently landed a $632,835 federal grant to bring the force back to its full complement of 11, council is uncertain it can legally accept the funds.
Fike said city officials have questions about how to replace those funds when the grant runs out.
Joshua Bloom, a Pittsburgh attorney who represents the firefighters, said today the union plans to fight the layoffs.
Copyright 2010 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
August 26, 2010
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Exactly Greg,
Too often though there are many with a preconceived notion of what a union does and that notion is typically wrong.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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As one of them told me today, the city will burn.
Solidarity or not, that shows the true colours of anyone. If anyone stands by and puts anyone from the public at risk by NOT responding, then there's some serious issues to be sorted.
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Permalink Reply by Harold Richard Hair on
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They do local IAFF 955
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i live in town outside of Uniontown called Dunbar. This is B/S station 40 runs a good bit of calls a day a nd i already know thy don't have a vol. pool big enough to cover the cityand with training stipulations not it would take 6 months to train them.
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most deff not overpaid i know for a fact
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Let me pose this question lets say you were a volunteer who refused to continue on after these guys were laid off and one of your family, or friends house burnt down or someone was killed bc you wanted to show solidarity to the paid ff's, and refused to show up to calls how would you feel and who do you think they would blame. Yeah show solidarity to your fellow firefighters but don't make the town suffer for what the elected officials are doing.
Solidarity or not, that shows the true colours of anyone. If anyone stands by and puts anyone from the public at risk by NOT responding, then there's some serious issues to be sorted.</</i>b>
Neither are wrong here, but just remember the word VOLUNTEER. There is nothing mandatory about making a person volunteer. If they choose not to respond, for whatever reason, that is their choice.
Solidarity can also send a message to the elected officials to rethink their decisions, and such a push can make the public of the community aware of the issues and take a stance as well. It is because of the decisions of the elected officials that the town suffers. It is easy to say, we will just have volunteers respond, yet can be another issue to ensure they do.
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Reply by Harold Richard Hair
most deff not overpaid i know for a fact
No, it is a common knee jerk reaction by folks who view something common like 80% going to wages and benefits to balk at the number and automatically assume one is overpaid.
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Permalink Reply by M.J. 6821 on
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Neither are wrong here, but just remember the word VOLUNTEER. There is nothing mandatory about making a person volunteer. If they choose not to respond, for whatever reason, that is their choice.
Solidarity can also send a message to the elected officials to rethink their decisions, and such a push can make the public of the community aware of the issues and take a stance as well. It is because of the decisions of the elected officials that the town suffers. It is easy to say, we will just have volunteers respond, yet can be another issue to ensure they do.
Thats fine if they want to stand there with the paid ff's and say this isnt right, there has to be another way. But if they are going to do it do it in a way that they can back up.
For example they can write a letter saying at current manpower levels we cannot protect the city of UnionTown adequately as an all volunteer like we can as a combination dept, have all the firemen sign it or start a petition and have all the volunteers sign it first then have them go out in the community and get signatures and have the volunteer crew deliver it to the city council. This way the city council knows its not just from the paid guys trying to save their jobs its also how the volunteers feel about whats going on.
Yes its true that no one can force people to go on calls, however when you volunteer to the fire dept, you are making a commitment that you should honor.
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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on
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Why would they volunteer to work for a town that fired them???
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Permalink Reply by Jake Stoffer on
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According to Pennsylvania law, a town or township cannot replace their paid department employees with volunteers or vice versa without the approval of a majority of the.voters on a ballot issue. The law is to prevent this exact scenario from happening. I know its a law for the townships and I am pretty sure its the same for the cites and towns.
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Ok real quick here on this. I was on a paid on call department and also worked in the departments office as support personnel. It was a public safety (police and fire) dept. The annual budget for this dept was approx. $960,000 at least 75% if I recall was for wages.and benefits. It's not what we were paid in total, you have to remember this includes the benefits which can be the same cost as wages.
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If this does apply thats good bc then the dept. will know what the people want and the people can show that they support the dept. But I have to ask lets say the people of the city say switch to volunteer and lay off the paid ff's. will the volunteers stick to their guns and say we aren't going to respond to calls and will the union be able to fight this if thats whats decided?
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