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What would you do if this happened
I am writing this to seek advice from my brother and sister firefighters, I know im going to get alot of gruff for putting this on FFNation but my hands are tied and dont know where to turn for adivce. The following has taken place in my dept I belong to.
A very close brother FF was terminated from my volunteer dept last week after he made a comment about the dept on facebook.
A little about the member he is a 20 year old 2 year member of the dept and has an extensive background in FF our chief has said he is the most qualified person in our dept if not the county. He just graduated at the top of his class with an associates degree in fire science and has over 60 state and national fire certifications in everything from EMT to Firefighting to technical rescue of various kinds etc. So basically he is a young man just starting his career and at todays day in volunteer service is a dream for any volly dept to have with his kind of ambition for the service. The only time this young individual has been reprimanded in the dept is 3 times for driving faster than he should have been going to calls he had been suspended each time and was getting much better and had gone over a year with out any further problem infact even removed his lightbar to further reduce any problems. (which for a young firemen to do I think is a huge step) other than that he has never done anything even one step out of line and never but himself or anyone else in any type of danger or anything like that.
A little about the dept is that it is a very rural dept that is primarily older member who still operate the way they were taught when they were younger, to say the least the dept is not up to speed where they should be but that is another whole issue to which some of us are trying to work on but the dept is not liking the change.
Then last week this FF had taken part in a dept training on Monday night our normal training night and was upset over what was being taught which was the old ways and not current teaching to which he knew this do to his extensive training he recently completed but instead of causing an argument at the training he just sat thru it and didnt say anything when he go home that night he was still upset over what had been taught so this FF put a message on his facebook page stating “volunteering to be aggravated love it NOT!” to which some other of the dept FF commented back on saying “must be the fire dept” to which the FF replied “oh you bet, time to move on cause things are never going to get better there until the chiefs that are in are gone” to which one of the other FF replied calling the current chiefs “obama” and “hussian” and other FF replied “ yeah im not sure what there trying to do besides drive all the good firefighters out until nobodys left” and the FF replied “ im not sure what there trying to do either the only thing I can figure out is in the direction there going they want it to be only them left to do everything and thats it guess they feel they dont need anyone else.” and that was the extent of the comments online. The next day the chief of the dept called this FF at home and advised him he was being terminated immediately when the FF ask why the chief started to yell at him and say because he has some complaints about what was said online and that this FF called them Obama and Hussian which he did not (we have the original facebook messages to prove this) the chief continued to scream that if he has a problem with it that the FF can come to the board of commissioners meeting and discuss all this in executive session there at this point instead of creating a argument with the chief he hung up the phone and had no further contact with the chief. Then 2 days later the FF recieved a letter from the chief stateing “effective immediatly you are terminated from ABC fire dept and from CBA fire dist. Please meet myself at the ABC hal on Saturday at 9 am to turn in all dept issued gear, if you can not meet at this time please call me so we can arrange a more convenient time. If you would like to address your termination with the commissioners (and gives meeting time and location)”
Signed by chief and states a copy of letter has also been given to each of the 5 commissioners and to the dist lawyer. So on top of this FF having to work Saturday morning and not wanting to have contact with the chief at this time he contacted one of the commissioners and meet with the commissioner and turn in all his gear and the commissioner said he would notify the chief.
When the FF had talked with the commissioner to which he had surrendered his gear to had not been notified of his termination which was now 3 days after he had been even though the termination letter states it was sent to all commissioners. Also the other FF including the one who made the Obama and Hussian comment was not terminated untill 2 days later and that was only because of further comments they personally made on there own facebook in retaliation to the said FF termination.
What I am looking for is any advice or anything else the FFNation community could offer for what this FF can do now he does plan to attend the commissioners meeting which is to take place tomorrow evening but does not expect it to go very well.
To me none of this seems fair or legal to any FF, when does ones freedom of speech come in to play at no time did he make any threats to any one or anything what are your thoughts and what would you do in this case?
A very close brother FF was terminated from my volunteer dept last week after he made a comment about the dept on facebook.
A little about the member he is a 20 year old 2 year member of the dept and has an extensive background in FF our chief has said he is the most qualified person in our dept if not the county. He just graduated at the top of his class with an associates degree in fire science and has over 60 state and national fire certifications in everything from EMT to Firefighting to technical rescue of various kinds etc. So basically he is a young man just starting his career and at todays day in volunteer service is a dream for any volly dept to have with his kind of ambition for the service. The only time this young individual has been reprimanded in the dept is 3 times for driving faster than he should have been going to calls he had been suspended each time and was getting much better and had gone over a year with out any further problem infact even removed his lightbar to further reduce any problems. (which for a young firemen to do I think is a huge step) other than that he has never done anything even one step out of line and never but himself or anyone else in any type of danger or anything like that.
A little about the dept is that it is a very rural dept that is primarily older member who still operate the way they were taught when they were younger, to say the least the dept is not up to speed where they should be but that is another whole issue to which some of us are trying to work on but the dept is not liking the change.
Then last week this FF had taken part in a dept training on Monday night our normal training night and was upset over what was being taught which was the old ways and not current teaching to which he knew this do to his extensive training he recently completed but instead of causing an argument at the training he just sat thru it and didnt say anything when he go home that night he was still upset over what had been taught so this FF put a message on his facebook page stating “volunteering to be aggravated love it NOT!” to which some other of the dept FF commented back on saying “must be the fire dept” to which the FF replied “oh you bet, time to move on cause things are never going to get better there until the chiefs that are in are gone” to which one of the other FF replied calling the current chiefs “obama” and “hussian” and other FF replied “ yeah im not sure what there trying to do besides drive all the good firefighters out until nobodys left” and the FF replied “ im not sure what there trying to do either the only thing I can figure out is in the direction there going they want it to be only them left to do everything and thats it guess they feel they dont need anyone else.” and that was the extent of the comments online. The next day the chief of the dept called this FF at home and advised him he was being terminated immediately when the FF ask why the chief started to yell at him and say because he has some complaints about what was said online and that this FF called them Obama and Hussian which he did not (we have the original facebook messages to prove this) the chief continued to scream that if he has a problem with it that the FF can come to the board of commissioners meeting and discuss all this in executive session there at this point instead of creating a argument with the chief he hung up the phone and had no further contact with the chief. Then 2 days later the FF recieved a letter from the chief stateing “effective immediatly you are terminated from ABC fire dept and from CBA fire dist. Please meet myself at the ABC hal on Saturday at 9 am to turn in all dept issued gear, if you can not meet at this time please call me so we can arrange a more convenient time. If you would like to address your termination with the commissioners (and gives meeting time and location)”
Signed by chief and states a copy of letter has also been given to each of the 5 commissioners and to the dist lawyer. So on top of this FF having to work Saturday morning and not wanting to have contact with the chief at this time he contacted one of the commissioners and meet with the commissioner and turn in all his gear and the commissioner said he would notify the chief.
When the FF had talked with the commissioner to which he had surrendered his gear to had not been notified of his termination which was now 3 days after he had been even though the termination letter states it was sent to all commissioners. Also the other FF including the one who made the Obama and Hussian comment was not terminated untill 2 days later and that was only because of further comments they personally made on there own facebook in retaliation to the said FF termination.
What I am looking for is any advice or anything else the FFNation community could offer for what this FF can do now he does plan to attend the commissioners meeting which is to take place tomorrow evening but does not expect it to go very well.
To me none of this seems fair or legal to any FF, when does ones freedom of speech come in to play at no time did he make any threats to any one or anything what are your thoughts and what would you do in this case?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John on
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your right it is all very messed up the whole dept is in my opinion as far as him being a career FF thats what he is trying for and is applying and so on he just was looking to stay with the volly dept until that time comes and do to strict residence requirements in the area here unless he moves this is the only dept he can be a volly at
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and there are no lawyers involved other than the district lawyer being notified by letter of his termination which is standard procedure for the dist they send EVERYTHING to him and run EVERYTHING by him, this is strictly between the FF and the board of commissioners.
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Permalink Reply by Bull on
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If he doesnt have a problem with listening, why did he get suspended 3 times for speeding ??? And because he has certs in evoc, does that make it ok to speed when told not to ??? I believe you missed my point !!!
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I understand your point and no I do not think it is ok for ANY FF to speed at ANY TIME FOR ANY Reason but I also dont think that this FF suspensions all from over a year ago have anything to do with his termination
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Greg,
They have him stand before the entire department and, with snare drums playing in the background, they rip the department patch off of his shoulders, he then has to leave the building and is banished. Hmmm, sounds like it could be (could have been) a tv show.....
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I appreciate everyone's input so far, I guess at this point should this firefighter have made the comments he did out side of the station NO HE SHOULD NOT HAVE and aside from that and with his previous incidents that had been resolved for over a year with his driving. In legal terms was this termination "legal". Would there not have had to been in the bylaws or in some other written format something specifically stating that a member can be punished up to and including termination from the dist if they post dist related stuff on a social network? Where does ones freedom of speech come in to play in this? I understand there is the whole what happens in the house stays in the house but can that be enforced especially when not in writing? I guess im asking everyone to take this at a "lawyers stand point" and defend the innocent until proven guilty...
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Permalink Reply by jared m snyder on
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This similar issue happened to myself as well... However it was not as extreme as this case... A reply I had made on Facebook somehow made it back to my Department Chief... Basically, I had made a reply to a post one of our Sheriffs candidates made about the county budget and what to do with extra money if he cut unnecessary spending within the County... In short, I replied, "Hey, you can always give the Fire Department the extra money... Hey, In fact, How about give us a wage... We deserve to be paid for what we do... " This somehow got back to the Chief... He was livid and started to ream me a new one about not bringing politics into the Fire Service... In all honesty, I think he was just having a bad day regarding other issues, and this was a way to vent... I didnt take it to heart, and i have a very good rapport with my Chief...
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Permalink Reply by Clay Reynolds on
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Everybody has good points but you need to remember if you have a disagreement with the chief or any other officer you must go through the proper channels, keep it in house and follow your proper protocols for this kind of thing. Everyone has a boss (someone they have to answer to). I am a chief on a small volly dept. and I've told my firefighters if they ever have an issue with me to first come to me, if that doesn't resolve an issue then go to my "bosses" which are the fire board of directors. If they can't get it resolved from the fire board then their final option is the township board. THIS IS ONE OF MY BIGGEST PET PEEVES. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me after a command, protocol, or any other decision I make however you don't do it at a scene, in front of the other firefighters, or go behind my back and trash me to someone else until you have followed the proper procedures. It sounds like it's time for your friend to move on and chalk this experience up as a learning thing for next time. If this is an ongoing problem for your dept. my advice would be to talk to the chief's bosses, the commisioners, and present your well thought out case in a professional manner and if that doesn't get the results you want then move on. Attitudes that you come with to the "older" members dictates how they'll handle what you have to say about change. Sometimes change has to come slowly and make sure you give the respect the "older" members are due and they may come around. LEAVE LAWYERS OUT OF THIS. You're a volly dept., he violated chain of command whether it be at the station or on his computer.
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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on
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Naw, then he would be Branded!
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Permalink Reply by J. D. Rinard on
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I do agree that we as firefighters need to have a balance of "Old Dogs" and "Newbies" To feed off of eachother. As training officer of my department I tell my men that I do not know it all. If you have a suggestion then say so. I have an "Old Dog" that busts my chops almost every training session. I respect him very highly and learn from him. Also if someone fresh out of the academy were to join us with a new idea he/she too would have a say in it. We need to remember that wa are a "team". "You go/We go."
As far as the original post here goes ... We all need to remember that if we have a beef with someone then we need to got to THAT person privately. Please do not air your dirty laundry out so the whole world knows. Things such as this can go down as slander. Think of how it makes the whole department look. Poeple out there depend on us and have a role in what support the department gets from governing officials.
My 2 cents.
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