Posted on 06/30/2010 4:35:12 AM PDT by chickadee
Volunteer fire departments are about as American as apple pie. But under legislation moving quickly in Congress, this staple of American life could soon be a thing of the past.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D.-S.C.) wants to include the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act as part of the war supplemental coming before the House this week. The bill forces state and local governments to collectively bargain with police, firefighters and emergency workers. Its critics say it would compel volunteer firefighters to join unions, threatening the survival of America's nearly 26,000 volunteer fire departments.
The act would affect some states more than others. In North Carolina and Virginia, for example, collective bargaining is currently prohibited. Eighteen other states have limitations on bargaining. The legislation would likely force those governments to abandon merit-based promotions for public safety workers and shift instead to a collectively bargained seniority schedule, which unions prefer.
By including the legislation in the much larger supplemental appropriations bill, which funds the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Clyburn would avoid a contentious fight with conservatives and appease unions with a legislative victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
I think you are missing the point. This would force volunteer fire depts to become unionized thereby raising the costs to maintain them. The towns, like mine, that have volunteer FD's would then have to join the union or close down leaving the town to either fend for itself (insurance rates?) or contract with a nearby FD (lots of money).
This whole thing is about expanding a union presence into every town in the USA.
As I said in another reply our house insurance will sky rocket. The closest paid fire department to us is about 45 miles away. And there are people down here who live even further away.
This bill is absolute sh!t.
This makes sense. Some states are more responsible than others. Those states do not want to pay to bailout states that allowed themselves to be bankrupted by their public employee unions. This would level the playing field so all states are bankrupt and support national bailouts. As democrats say when raising some people's taxes: “We all are in this together”.
They have authority like they do with every other group they want to command; Grant money!
With the cost of mandatory equipment skyrocketing dangling a Benjamin or two to a fire department can be irresistible!
BUT! here it comes, if they want the money then they must have EVERY member in the organization go through a federal FEMA training program (Free, Heh! for now) called NIMS.
Look out, Congress! Once every job is unionized, every profession, we won’t need YOU to look out for “the little guy!”
At that point, almost anything you do will be anti-union!
Quite. How exactly does even the liberals’ view of the Commerce Clause give them the power to get involved in matters like this?
Correct. And the local goon squad will pay you a visit.
We lost our local 5 man police department a couple of years back primarily over cost. Instead we entered a contract with the county Sheriff’s department. Now we pay twice as much as the county lays off deputies and a patrol car rolls through town once or twice a week.
Our local cops knew the people and didn’t get jumpy if they saw a gun. I was out in the boat a while back and one of the county cops stopped and called me over to the road and gave me a ticket for being out in the boat without a life preserver. If it had been our local cops they would have simply told me I needed to go back to shore and get one or simply told me about it later when they saw me at the post office.
Don’t worry; I’m sure some EPA mandate about smoke reduction will force states to employ fire departments to cover rural areas, focusing especially on agricultural burning (and catastrophic large-scale conflagrations). Just don’t expect a rescue squad.
Seriously. EPA has been pushing “smoke management” for years and likely will tighten inextricably their bureaucratic choke hold on beneficial fires.
For your information: small town Volunteer Fire Dept’s getting unionized...
Sure, he'll then blame "rich, greedy people", raise taxes on them and use it to pay for more union jobs.
My town has no ambulance service. When they finish making a contract with the county for a full time stand by ambulance, our property taxes will go up up up. Our property taxes are high enough as it is right now yet we have no extra services as other towns do.
Meanwhile, our fire department is fizzling out because of lack of volunteers. There are just too many hoops to jump through and it takes too much time to train new firefighters. The present firefighters have 9 to 5 jobs out of town. So if anyone here plans to have a fire, it should be scheduled for after 6 pm.
IAFF is bullying volunteers for their massive gooberment jobs program. As far as I’m concerned, they can go DIAF. Anyone who knows anything about these rural FDs understands that they would pretty much all die if they were forced to only rely on paid firefighters.
“I was wondering - what happens if a town/village has no fire department? Do their property insurance bills go out of sight?”
Having a volunteer fire department does, of course, determine
fire insurance.
I knew of no towns in my area that did not have a volunteer
FD, with at least one truck, sometimes two or three, depending on size of the area served.
One time we helped save a bank in a town that was 20 miles away.
“I like firefighters, but I can’t help noticing that they have hours and hours every week to fritter away at my local supermarket.”
It’s called shopping for a firehouse.
Maybe ambulance service should be a county service kind of thing. I watch too much Brit TV and that’s how they seem to manage emergency medical services. County-wide services might work for fire and police, as well. I live in a large city with a large police force, but we also have a county sheriff’s department.
I am mostly troubled by the requirement of unionization. It sounds like the do-badders (buttinskis and trial lawyers) have already made volunteer fire departments a precarious situation.
IMO James Clyburn is the face of EVIL because he is a Democrat and is supported by Satan. The evil Democrat Party supports the killing of the unborn. Make no mistake about it. Our country is being destroyed before our very eyes!
When Islamists talk about the Great Satan they are talking about the Democrat Party. That is, the Party that supports the destruction of the family via mock marriage, that supports the killing of the unborn, that supports the destruction of free enterprise, and that supports One World government.
“It’s called shopping for a firehouse.”
Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. I started paying more attention and noticed that they were shopping individually. They’d buy individual deli sandwiches for themselves, with no larger supplies in sight. Also, does it take 6 or 7 of them at once? Sometimes two trucks are in the store parking lot at the same time - the small one and the hook and ladder.
And, as many of us already know, because of the 72 on, 72 off rule, many firefighters have either second jobs or small businesses, such as roofing contractor.
another 10th challenge...i simply dont think these commies know any boundaries, and are feverishly driving the train towards the edge...
This would hurt many people, especially in the farm states.
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