They work 24 on 48 off with all having full time jobs on the side where they make as much or more than they do at the public sector trough. They get to retire, often in their forties or fifties, with lifetime income and benefits including health insurance.
In the mean time they are in competition with all the tradesmen and small businesses like carpentry, concrete, construction and often real estate and insurance. They have the advantage of not having to pay for their own benefits like health insurance and retirement and undercut their competition. This takes money out of the average citizens pocket, you know the ones that pay their salary!
The fact is that outside of some large cities, it is highly unlikely that most firemen fight more than one fire a year, if that, and of those many are set for their own training. Yet they constantly put on the mantle of everyday hero as if they where all running up the stairs at the World Trade Center every day they went to work. When in reality they are trading time, padding their overtime and spending most of their time at the firehouse as a spring board for their second jobs and putting in time to retirement.
Enough already! Firemen are no different and often worse than every other public employee. They tend to be extra lazy and remarkably corrupt in their time keeping and their training records.
Like I said MOST firefighters are volunteers. The rest are union goons who use the city they work for and treat the ordinary tax payer like patsies.
As for fighting fires: That is what they are paid to do! Many jobs are dangerous, often some of the most dangerous pay the least amount of money and receive the least amount of respect. When the firefighters start working shifts like everyone else and give up all their part time/full time side jobs, I will start to worry about their pay. Until then they have all those other jobs to supplement their income while the city gets its' finances in order and of course, they lounge around on their lazy boys watching TV and making dinner.
They work 24 on 48 off with all having full time jobs on the side where they make as much or more than they do at the public sector trough.
I agree that the private sector folks make a ton more than the civil servants and you seem to agree too as your sentence above says. The firefighters I know work 24 on and 24 off. Sure they get good bennies which I am glad. The volunteer guys go in when needed (after the fire has started). You may not like firefighters but I sure as heck do. In fact, I wish they would double their pay. I think they are sorely underpaid for what they do. What were YOU doing 9/11 when they were running up into the building to save people? Don’t bother answering, I already know.