Village Trustees comment on FDNY Firefighters who are also volunteer

[Viper 139]

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SUBMITTED BY THE GARDEN CITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Recently, the Village faced the difficult task of developing a 2016-2017 budget that complied with the state-imposed tax cap and limited tax increases to no more than the rate of inflation. To help control costs, the budget eliminated 5 personnel positions from across all Village departments, including 2 of our 18 paid, unionized firefighters.

 

Now, our paid firefighters are circulating a petition suggesting the Village should study the risk of reducing our complement of paid firefighters by 2 positions. In response, the Village notes the following:

 

 

http://www.gcnews.com/news/2016-04-15/Community/Village_Trustees_comment_on_Paid_Firefighters_peti.html

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WOW! A must read. Some really complicated, issues, to say the least.

[AFS1970 504]

Wow, seems like a somewhat complicated bowl of issues.

 

I will start by saying that I never want to see anyone loose a job by lay off, regardless of union membership.

 

As for the work rules quoted there, I would think that if that one that requires the paid rig to leave before the volunteer rig is true then it needs to change. Although I am not sure how much of an increase it actually has on response times. If both rigs are in quarters and get the call at the same time, it seems like mere seconds and largely academic which one pulls onto the apron first. If the volunteer rig is not staffed it would be delayed regardless of the paid rig's status. Seems like it would only be an issue if the paid rig had some sort of delay due to training or something similar, and that is probably in the minority of cases.

 

As for the FDNY members not being allowed to volunteer, I am not in favor of rules being in place to prevent that. Many of us have long argued that this should be an individual choice. However part of accepting that has to be that the individual is free to choose not volunteering also. This can be for a variety of reasons and not wanting to work in another union's station is just as valid a reason as any other. So While I don't agree with that rule, I am not sure changing it would have that much of an effect. Plus even if that rule were changed, many union members, and not all of them firefighters, might not want to volunteer in a station that has laid off employees.

 

The intimidation of members of other unions to stay away from volunteering can be a real thing. I am reminded of something I read years ago however that was talking about this very issue. It was praising firefighters in general as a different breed, saying that there are no other professions who's members are willing to volunteer their time off to do the very same thing they get paid for. So I have to chock up anyone who stops volunteering due to intimidation to once again be a personal choice, and even if I disagree with that choice, it is still for that individual to decide. Intimidation/bullying in the workplace needs to be prevented as much as humanly possible but it is still up to us how we respond to it.

 

Lastly, I think they are using the term anachronism incorrectly. I have always heard of it describing something that was out of place in the modern times. If the current combination system is indeed serving the community well, then it is not out of place. Since the addition of paid staff is generally more recent than volunteer staff, I can't see a combination system being out of date, unless you were talking about adding more paid staff not reducing the paid staff. If they are doing so well with volunteer recruitment and retention that they are using this word correctly, I can think of a lot of departments that will want to know their secret.