Posted on 05/26/2026 5:22:02 AM PDT by Libloather
Los Angeles firefighters have broken ranks to tear into Mayor Karen Bass over the disastrous state of the department across the city.
Officers revealed to the California Post they are trapped in marathon shifts, missing paychecks and going through hell while its budget flatlines despite rising risks of wildfires.
They warned response times are climbing and emergency callouts are exploding but City Hall was refusing to pump in desperately needed cash.
Fire crews are now pooling together more than $1 million of their own cash to push for a sales tax measure they claim would cover just the basics to keep the department running.
Rich Ramirez, vice president of UFLAC Local 112 and a firefighter paramedic, told The Post: “We don’t have relief. We can’t just shut something down and tell residents no one is coming. So you stay.
“You can go from doing CPR on a child to a traffic crash, cutting someone out of a car, then straight to a drowning. That all happens in a single 24-hour shift.”
Firefighters describe 48-hour tours that spiral longer, with mandated overtime keeping some on duty up to 120 hours in high-intensity conditions.
Doug Coates, president of UFLAC Local 112 and a firefighter engineer, continued: “You think you’re going home, and they tell you you’re staying. You miss birthdays, you miss your family.”
Even as overtime piles up, some firefighters say they are still fighting just to be paid, with missed checks and delayed wages adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for crew members.
“We’ve filed grievances, gone to arbitration, and now we’re in lawsuits,” Ramirez said. “People are owed thousands of dollars. This is regular pay.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Commies fighting a commie.
“Commies fighting a commie.”
Commies never recognize it’s their policies that are failing. They just think they don’t have the right commies in charge.
Not sure OSHA allows 120 hours straight. That’s 41/2 shifts straight then off 24 before your next shift.
“””Fire crews are now pooling together more than $1 million of their own cash to push for a sales tax measure”””
Yeah, let’s tax the people of CA more to fix the problems created by the politicians and bureaucrats.
LAFD works what are called Kelly shifts. Our county talked about doing Kelly shifts but it is so big some of the guys would spend a ton of time driving to and from work so the kelly shifts were not compatible. I would bet most of the guys that work in LAFD don’t actually live in LA. Most places now living in the county/city you work is not a requirement.
The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) uniformed personnel generally work a 24-hour shift schedule, known as the “Kelly” or “California Swing” schedule. This 9-day rotation cycle requires firefighters to work one 24-hour shift, have 24 hours off, work another 24-hour shift, have 24 hours off, work a final 24-hour shift, and then take 4 consecutive days off.
We were so short staffed that I worked 8 24 hour shifts in a row and that wasn’t a record in the department. We were forcing OT nearly every day.
Police and Fire are going to be supported by taxpayers any way we slice it. I can’t see a way out of it. The Bureaucracy is where we need to make the cuts. It keeps growing and growing...
I bet the drag queens get paid.
“ This 9-day rotation cycle requires firefighters to work one 24-hour shift, have 24 hours off, work another 24-hour shift, have 24 hours off, work a final 24-hour shift, and then take 4 consecutive days off.”
**********************************************************
Of course each 24 hour “work” shift includes time sleeping, showering, eating and sitting around bull-shitting (or reading, watching TV, surfing the net, etc.).
Just sayin’.
Burner Bass name is forever on the stink list.
‘Firefighting’ ain’t what it used to be. In most cities, I’ve heard that 80-90% of calls are medical in nature. And of those calls, 80-90% involve the homeless, often the same people needing emergency services over and over again. Going from one crisis to the next is getting to be the norm. Time spent in the station waiting for a call to come in used to be part of the gig, and allowed time to regroup, in every sense of the word, between events. Not so much anymore.
Also, glad to hear they’re going after Bass, a genuine communist actively ruining one of the world’s largest cities.
They need to be reasonable. She’s got cronies to pay and illegal voters to bribe, and it’s not like she can just print more money, yet.
Public Union CORRUPTION must stop.
As long as they group vote for Dems they will never get full support from voters.
And, they really don’t care cuz they get their money from their voting.
Prison Guard Union, Teachers Union, Public Employees, etc.
They can vote for their pay raises.
The “Public Service” sacrifice of low wages went out the window many, many decades ago.
Depends on which station they’re working. Some stations they don’t have time for all that because of the number of calls. ;)
“”””I would bet most of the guys that work in LAFD don’t actually live in LA.””””
A change that I saw over the decades on the Southern California coast was starting to see firemen living on the coast and accumulating real estate as their pensions and pay and second jobs had money rolling in, as their unions along with other city government unions used their voting power to loot the public.
Hubby is a retired Captain. Most people have no clue what firefighters actually do anymore. The majority of their time is on medical calls.
Police in many areas have been replaced by private security, and there were private fire companies in Los Angeles that saved buildings from the Palisades fire.
Insolvent cities need to be dissolved before nature does it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.