General President Schaitberger Recounts IAFF Efforts after 9-11

For too long, the contributions, the service and the sacrifice of our nation’s fire fighters went unnoticed and unappreciated. But the horrific carnage of September 11 and the tragic loss of 343 brave New York City fire fighters at the hands of those terrorist bastards changed all that.

As fire fighters do everywhere, our fallen brothers answered the call and did their jobs. They, and the thousands of others from FDNY who responded, saved tens of thousands of lives and performed admirably in the face of untold adversity.

But the magnitude of our loss is still hard to comprehend. When those towers collapsed on that Tuesday morning, the International Association of Fire Fighters had no time to reflect. There was no time to just sit and watch the catastrophe unfold like spectators in a Steven Spielberg movie. We had to perform; we had to take decisive action.

And we did perform as a union, and I believe at the highest level. We took immediate and positive actions to help the families of our fallen brothers and to help our New York members in their time of grief, sorrow, anger and need.

We were at the Pentagon just hours after the attack, meeting with incident command to ensure that the fire fighters there were operating as safely as the situation would allow, and we let every one of those first responders know that their union was there for them.

Twenty-four hours after the cowardly attacks, we were in New York at Ground Zero. I will never forget the awesome carnage, the raw emotion, and the utter devastation that I saw there. And I will never forget the sorrow and the grief on the faces of our New York union leaders when I met with the two local union boards on the evening of the 12th.

We sat with them and tried to bring some structure and calm to the chaos that prevailed. That night, we established our New York Fire Fighters 9-11 Fund, which has to date raised and disbursed more than $144 million dollars to the 347 families of our fallen brothers with no fanfare and with virtually no administrative cost.

We immediately set up an IAFF headquarters office in mid-town Manhattan and put staff in the offices of both of our New York locals so that we could respond to needs and issues that were mounting by the minute. Working with FEMA and FDNY, we put together a counseling support system composed of IAFF CISM teams to help our New York brothers and sisters deal with their emotional and psychological burdens.

For the first 10 weeks after the attacks our union counseling teams rotated into New York from across Canada and the United States logging tens of thousands of hours at Ground Zero and in firehouses across the city’s five boroughs.

We secured a retroactive increase in the PSOB benefits from $151,000 to $250,000 and won changes in the regulations to cut through the red tape and speed up payment to the families.

We established a permanent fire fighter counseling support fund that continues to assist the FDNY Counseling Services Unit in providing ongoing services to the city’s fire fighters and the IAFF has committed $3 million to the FDNY program. This fund and program will also be available to provide resources to deal with counseling needs after future tragedies.

We coordinated the orderly rotation of fire fighters from across the United States and Canada into New York to insure that fire fighters were in attendance at every funeral.

We stood and fought side-by-side with our New York brothers and sisters when the former mayor tried to turn the recovery process into a scoop-and-dump operation for his political benefit, and when he had 18 of our members – including four of my union officers – arrested on trumped-up charges during our peaceful demonstration at the site.

We went on the offensive and supported our widows and families who were angry and upset that torsos were turning up in the Fresh Kills landfill. We forced Mayor Giuliani to retreat, drop the charges and reverse the city’s plans to prematurely end the dignified recovery of our brothers’ remains from Ground Zero.

And late last month, we secured more than $3 million dollars in U.S. federal funding so the IAFF can provide much-needed training to FDNY personnel to help them rebuild their HazMat program which was decimated on 9-11.

In the aftermath of that fateful day, we faced a challenge that was beyond our imagination, a challenge that stretched my Union’s human and fiscal resources to the limit. But we rose to that challenge because we had no choice. It was our duty. It was our responsibility.

None of us will ever forget the ultimate sacrifice made by our 343 fallen brothers in New York. Their names will be engraved on memorials of marble and stone to honor their heroism. But such tributes can never truly capture the tragic events of September 11, or the price that was paid by these brave heroes and their families.

We must create a lasting and meaningful tribute to our fallen brothers that will have even more meaning than the monuments that will withstand the test of time. It is our responsibility to create a legacy that will also change and improve the lives of those who fill their footsteps in New York City and jurisdictions across this nation for generations to come.

That is why today, in their memory, I call upon each of you to join with the International Association of Fire Fighters in building a living memorial to their sacrifice and heroism.

For more than three decades I have heard too many politicians pay lip service to our profession and to our need for meaningful action to keep our fire fighters safe and secure. The plaudits and promises that have come from the politicians since September 11 have been heartening, but they are not enough.

We don’t need any more prayers. We don’t need any more homilies. We don’t need any more photo ops. And we don’t need any more speeches. What we need, what we must demand, today, tomorrow and every day, is meaningful action by our elected officials. What we need is meaningful support for the safety and well being of our nation’s fire fighters. We cannot stop and we cannot let up until we get it.

From large cities to small communities we must be united in our call to arms. From the halls of Congress to town meetings we must demand that elected officials support the needs of our profession. We cannot tolerate equivocation or excuses and we must not take no for an answer.

Over the last two years we have seen unprecedented cooperation among the major fire service organizations in fighting for mutual goals to advance the issues that will keep our people safe and help them better protect the public. I am here today to suggest we must continue to work together, whenever and wherever possible.

All of you may not always agree with the IAFF and I don’t expect you to. We are a union and our first priority is the safety and well being of our members. But much of what we do and have done over the last 84 years has resulted in dramatic advances for the entire fire service.

I think back to one year ago as I arrived in Indianapolis to address the FDIC and received a call from my staff that the administration was hell bent on eliminating funding for the FIRE Act. The IAFF and other fire service organizations mounted a concerted lobbying effort to reverse that decision. The result? The administration did a complete reversal and fully funded the FIRE Act at $100 million dollars.

This fiscal year the fire service succeeded in convincing Congress to appropriate $360 million for that vital program for 2002, and won commitments to extend the authorization for another 3 years at $900 million dollars per year. This is a victory that none of us could have imagined a few short years ago.

Unfortunately, the administration in its infinite wisdom again proposes to eliminate the program. So, once again, we will respond and we will win. We must insure that fire departments across this nation get the resources they need to do the job that is required of them.

On the other hand, we believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I applaud Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh for their continuing commitment to the fire service and America’s first responders. And I also applaud President Bush for his budget proposal allocating $3.2 billion dollars for terrorism response and preparation. Now we must work with the administration to get this program through Congress.

To that end, I have made a firm commitment to Director Ridge that the IAFF will use our political action committee, our staff lobbyists and our substantial political resources at the federal, state and local levels to assist the administration in winning congressional approval of the WMD funding we need if we are to effectively serve as the nation’s domestic defenders.

As this program works its way through the congressional maze, we must insist that the money gets to the local fire departments where it belongs, where the rubber meets the road. We must be vigilant. We cannot allow the $3.2 billion to be siphoned off by universities and think tanks. We cannot allow it to be captured by governors and diverted elsewhere. We cannot allow local communities to funnel it into their general funds.

The vast majority of this funding must go to local fire departments where it can be used to train and equip fire fighters and other first responders to deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks – whether they involve biological and chemical weapons or dirty bombs.

But all of this WMD funding still will not meet the greatest need facing the fire service today and that need is staffing. At the end of the day, no matter how much fancy equipment and technology is available, it takes fire fighters to put out the fires, respond to hurricanes, and earthquakes, and handle the aftermath of a WMD attack. It is disgraceful that two-thirds of the nation’s fire departments are inadequately staffed.

One year ago in this room, I called for passage of NFPA 1710, and today that national standard is a reality. We now have a bonafide yardstick that measures fire department performance and deployment. The issue is now clearly defined and the bottom line is that we need many more fire fighters. Frankly the federal government must act. We are sick and tired of hearing that staffing is a local issue.

Government exists for one reason and that is to protect and serve its citizens. The federal government recognized the need to help local communities hire more law enforcement officers and rightfully so. Now it is time for Congress to recognize that providing the resources – the money – to hire fire fighters is the federal government’s responsibility and the IAFF, with the help of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, plans on making damn sure that Congress accepts and shoulders that responsibility.

This country would never send its army into battle at two-thirds strength, so why on earth are our nation’s domestic warriors being asked to operate with inadequate staffing?

So I ask you to join with us in creating a Living Memorial to our fallen brothers in New York and to all of the fire fighters who have given their lives in the line of duty. It won’t be easy. The foundation of our living memorial will be built by our hard work and effort. But we owe it to them we owe it to all of those fire fighters on the line today, we owe it to the fire fighters who will come after us for generations to come. And we owe it to the public who counts on their fire fighters to protect their lives and property, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

They say that out of adversity comes strength. We faced adversity like we’ve never faced before on September 11. It was the darkest day in the history of the fire service, and it was the darkest day ever for my union. But from that darkness we must seek light, we must seek strength, and we must strive for meaningful change that will help save lives of both fire fighters and the public.

Thank you and God Bless.

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