Invest In Your Future

May-June, 2005 International Fire Fighter

When it’s time to negotiate your contract, or in the event you’re faced with layoffs, station closures or brownouts, who’s your adversary? In this union, in most every case, you’re fighting your city, town, municipality, county or some other government entity.

That’s because the people who ultimately control your lifeline on the job are virtually always politicians or appointed by politicians. The message is, if we can control who gets elected, we can avoid many of the problems before they ever start. If we aren’t always in a position of defending ourselves against a chief or commissioner who’s unjustly disciplining our members or with a mayor looking to make budget cuts, we can instead go on the offense and actively work to improve our standard of living, our safety and health, our training and equipment.

Examples are everywhere. In March, we held our 23rd IAFF Legislative Conference in Washington, DC. The same week that our 800 brothers and sisters at the conference marched to Capitol Hill to lobby their senators and congressional members, a bi-partisan coalition of legislators in the Senate voted to increase homeland security funding for first responders by $550 million.

One of the biggest political attacks against our members right now is on our pensions. While the fight in California has received the most attention, bad pension bills in Alaska and West Virginia have slipped under the radar.

Just last month, Alaska Senate Bill 141 passed the state senate. The governor supported it. This bill would put all new hires in state and local government and school districts into a new defined contribution plan similar to a 401(k) with no guaranteed benefits. Our Alaska members’ only hope is that the bill passed by the House will retain an option for new employees to choose the existing defined enefit plan. And in West Virginia, it took late-night discussions between the state’s governor and IAFF 4th District Vice President Bill Taylor, West Virginia President Chuck Walsh and me to expose the unfairness of a pension bill that would have made it easy for a struggling municipality to eliminate defined benefit pensions.

The governor vetoed the bill after he promised to address the issue by assisting in the development of a more thorough and fair bill.Our Canadian brothers and sisters have also seen how politics plays into their daily lives. A great example is in Manitoba, where the province’s NDP government introduced legislation April 12 expanding the number of cancers recognized as occupational diseases associated with fire fighting to seven, and also adding compensation for heart attacks.

The legislative proposals are the result of ongoing lobbying by the Manitoba Professional Fire Fighters Association and a strong rapport with their Premier and a fire fighter-friendly NDP government. It is anticipated that Bill 25 will be enacted sometime in the next few months.

A strong political effort by our affiliates has also led to presumptive legislation being passed in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, while the British Columbia government announced April 12 that legislation recognizing seven cancers as occupational among professional fire fighters will be introduced in the next session of the legislature.

In Providence, Rhode Island, our fire fighters have been working without a contract for almost five years because their mayor refuses to negotiate in good faith.

Just last month in Arkansas, after more than 20 years of persistent work by our state association working hand in hand with other unions, the governor signed a dues deduction bill that requires municipalities to deduct union and professional dues from city employee paychecks.

Arkansas is a right-to-work state with a small union population. But a lot of political legwork and PAC support to the right candidates enabled our fire fighters there to finally gain the support needed for this important victory.

Examples could go on and on. The point is, as a union, we spend millions, at every level, taking on battles with bad politicians. While we are not always successful in getting our friends elected when we support a candidate, we have a proven, strong record of success. But it’s a tried-and-true fact that if we stay out of politics, more politicians who are not our friends get elected, and that ends up costing our union and our members in the long run.

Just think about it. How much did your local have to spend on your last big arbitration against your city, or in fighting in contract negotiations, or to protect against layoffs, station closures and other cuts in the past two years?

Now think if your local made it a priority to spend even just half of that time, effort and money in getting fire fighter-friendly politicians and legislators elected. Your local could be working to improve your members lives using that money, rather than fighting from a defensive position.

Simply put, political action — whether it’s in the form of monetary support, endorsements, active campaigning or other activities — is a necessary part of success for this union and our members. Investing in politics is investing in your future. Each of us needs to give time and money to get our friends elected.

Click Here to Read President Schaitberger's Past Messages

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