Union Perspectives

It may be just me, but a lot of today’s union firefighters are thinking differently than they did in the old days about unions? Having spent 44 plus years in the industry, I can say without a doubt firefighters are heroes, brave, gutsy, tough, strong, a little nuts, but they pour their heart and soul into the job of saving others and their pets. So why don’t they do the same for themselves? In 44 years as a volunteer and district firefighter, the four words that still haunt me to this day are, “It’s all I got.” I’ve lost count of the times people begged us to protect their home because, “It’s all I got.” I was on a strike team and we were getting ready to start setting up on houses before the fire hit upon us and an old man came up to us and our fire engine and asked if we would protect his home. He said it wasn’t much, but “it’s all I got.” It wasn’t much, more of a ramshackle old place in the woods. The strike-team leader didn’t want us to spend time on the old place, but I promised