The volunteers/first responders, why do we need to keep them?
Lots of union members are volunteer firefighters/first responders.
One reason why is that when the State, counties, and cities go broke, the volunteers will still be responding because they don’t do this work as their primary job. There is a commonality between volunteer firefighters and union, both under attack.
For them it’s about community and what they can do to make things safer and better for their families, neighbors, citizens, and visitors within that area. It’s about being selfless in a time when being greedy is becoming more commonplace in this country.
But the state and federal governments are making this volunteerism harder with the regulations and laws that make no exemptions for the volunteer first responders. These same laws for full-time first responders are the same for volunteers, and it is not done for safety, but to weed out the volunteer first responders.
The way it is done is to put more costs and requirements on training of the volunteers for a type of job that has worked for the 60 years that I know of.
Follow the Money: the manufacturers of all fire engines and clothing have people sitting on all the different safety boards that make the rules, like the 10 year rule on turnouts (fire safety clothes), helmets, and now the rule that says each volunteer must have two sets of turnouts at a cost of between $2,000 to $3,000 a set.
The then SCBA (breathing apparatus) keeps getting add-ons which out dates the sets at a cost of $2,000 to $3,000 a piece.
If you want to know why there are less volunteer first responders, just follow the money and rules changes and who benefits. The beneficiaries are more than you think. Consider a death of volunteers by a thousand cuts or regulations.
But the old volunteers will still show up if we let them.
And you will be damn glad to have them when you’re bleeding out or your house is on fire. This is why some of the best volunteers are working at union jobs and retired union workers who have good pensions and time on their hands to volunteer for their communities’ betterment.
It’s time to pick a side. You want to have and keep unions with good wages and pensions, then it’s time to pick a side. You want to keep Social Security for yourself and family, it is time to pick a side. You want to get or keep Medicare and Obama’s Affordable Care Act, then it’s time to pick a side. It is us against the billionaires. The very rich got that way off the backs of workers, and now want to strip everything away from those workers. It’s time to pick a side. The very rich can buy countries, then make the people get on their hands and knees and grovel and beg for scrapes that usually go into the dumpster. It’s time to pick a side. Is this what we want for our family and our future? It’s time to pick a side. Get ready to fight for you and your families’ lives. There is no middle ground with these greedy people for they want it all—all the money—all the power—all the land so where does this leave us when they have all the commons, like water, land and airways? It’s time to pick...
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