County grand jury issues scathing report on fire departments

[Ridryder911]

County grand jury issues scathing report on fire departments

Interesting

http://m.mercurynews.com/sjm/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=0hMzNEBW&full=true#display

 

[Shishkabob]

I read it this morning...loved and agreed with most of it.

 

[mycrofft]

Spot on.

Now, how to convince cities etc to keep a sufficiently staffed and equipped standing firefighting force, and the unions/FD to design and deploy them.

 

[medicsb]

I'm curious to see how the IAFF and IAFC will respond to this. I imagine it will be rather comical.

 

[MrBrown]

super mega hella ROFPMSLMAO

Brown bets them Fire Unions are spewing over this

 

[shfd739]

Oh the union response will be great. I love how theyre singled out for being hostile and doing the normal fire union stuff. this will be fun to watch.

 

[281mustang]

As much of those of us on the fire side like to justify our positions we realize that many of the accusations have merit, but at the end of the day it's not out of line with police and the US government as a whole.

That's just the nature of living in a country run by lobbyists/unions. Scare tactics and brute force as used to achieve goals.

You just have to learn to take the good with the bad.

 

[mycrofft]

You need those unions to counterbalance the bean counters, though.

Otherwise the politicians will cut resources and benefits to the point things go sour, then blame those ungrateful firefighters.
Look into what has happened to air traffic control since Reagan killed their union.

 

[medicsb]

Full report here: http://www.scscourt.org/court_divisions/civil/cgj/2011/FDResponse.pdf

 

[Foxbat]

The jury report also suggested ambulances could respond faster. And it assailed minimum-staffing requirements in firefighter union contracts as hindering flexibility for departments to operate more efficiently.

Because, unlike these union thugs, grand jury obviously knows how many firefighters are really needed to fight a fire. I mean, firefighting is really simple, anyone is an expert in it

 

[emtpche]

The grand jury's report was right on so many points. I started my career in this county and seen how it has evolved to the beast that it is. I will not be surprise if any changes are made as Rural/Metro is taking over from AMR in the county. Also while it is heavy on the firefighters how about the local ems agency for sitting on their rumps. I know that they can force change

 

[SeanEddy]

I was wondering how long it would take for something like this to happen. What's going to scare the unions is the trend that will start. Once people start realizing that you don't need a fire engine to respond to the overwhelming majority of calls, cuts will start coming their way.

I predict that you will a surge of departments trying to "merge" with the existing EMS service. Kinda hard to cut down the response when both the ambulance and first responders come from the same agency.

 

[281mustang]

Otherwise the politicians will cut resources and benefits to the point things go sour, then blame those ungrateful firefighters.
Look into what has happened to air traffic control since Reagan killed their union.

I'm not arguing that they're not needed, but once you're organized and have some pull it's just human nature to try to take thing as far as you can without backlash. It's what every union does, not just those on the big red fire truck.

If we live in a world in which we're constantly paying for the actions of special interest groups I'm not going to argue against being under one in my specific job to help offset it all. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.