The Firehouse Forum

Are you a Firefighter? Are you searching the tubes looking for debate about IAFF’s endorsement of that Obama guy? Are you looking for why they’d do this?

Well, the answer is simple, he supports a worker’s right to organize.

In a recent AP article now available on line through the Washington Post, Senator Biden had this to say about the Employee Free Choice Act:

Biden also read comments attributed to McCain in a trade publication in which he called for reducing regulation for health insurance markets the way the banking industry was deregulated in the past 10 years. Obama referred to the same comments during his appearance in Florida.

That approach, Biden said, would expose health coverage for workers to the disastrous results that subprime mortgages wrought on the lending industry.

McCain spokesman Ben Porritt responded to Biden's criticisms by saying Obama supports "taking away a worker's right to secret ballots. John McCain wants to protect the democratic rights of those who unionize by preserving their ability to choose and vote freely."

Actually, the bill supported by Obama and opposed by McCain would make it easier to unionize. The bill would allow employees to form a union when a majority in the workplace sign union cards, without having to go through a second step _ a secret ballot vote that companies now can demand. Many employers oppose the bill because they say workers who don't want a union could be intimidated into signing up for one without the cover of a secret ballot.

I’ve been watching a notable uptick in google searches for “IAFF Obama endorsement” and I thought, let’s take a look at the Firehouse forum and tackle some of the issues on their site and why IAFF is now out there trying to convince their membership to vote their best interest:

Let’s start with Scarecrow57

ScareCrow57
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What amazes me is that any union would endorse a candidate who proposes to take more money from the working class to give it to the poor. It should be more about what will this candidate do for my union members. Just one more reason to hate unions.

A return comment really broke it down pretty damn well:

scfire86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
What amazes me is that any union would endorse a candidate who proposes to take more money from the working class to give it to the poor. It should be more about what will this candidate do for my union members. Just one more reason to hate unions.
I read some of the comparisions on the website. I'll look for other sources but I believe that is exactly what occurred.McCain supports placing firefighters into the Social Security which would be an immediate hit of about 16% on income. He wants to overturn FLSA which would have an impact on how overtime is calculated.Most curious to me is his opposition to defined benefit pension plans. He campaigned here in CA to support an initiative that would have demolished defined benefit plans in 2005. It lost. The Governor has expressed regret over supporting the issue but McCain has not. What is curious to me is his belief in this matter given that he collects a pension for his years of service as a naval officer and qualifies for another as a legislator. If he believes defined benefit pension plans are so wrong why isn't he now advocating eliminating them for federal workers. Especially those in the DoD?Like it or not, he has a record of opposing what I call very much bread and butter issues for working people.
__________________1-20-09.....End of an error.

Scarecrow seems to equate (and does in other posts on this forum site and in this thread) Democrats to taking money from the middle class to give it to the poor. This is blatantly untrue. Yes, we all have a responsibility to ensure that our friends, neighbors and family members don’t suffer; that where ever we can, we lift them up; but that doesn’t mean that it should be done at the loss of another group. I’m all for repealing the Bush tax breaks that were given to the ubber rich. And I’m straight up for an inheritance tax for estates that exceed $250k. Capital gains should also be taxed especially since that isn’t money you’ve earned, but rather, it’s money received.

If scarecrow is a unionized firefighter, he lacks a grasp of the very issues that SCFire addresses, pensions, overtime calculations, and bargaining rights (addressed in later posts). And it is this lack of understanding of these issues that actually makes me think that he isn’t a firefighter at all, or at the very least, isn’t a unionized firefighter (think those without collective bargaining rights or perhaps volunteers).

What I also find fascinating in the Scarecrow’s comments are his complete ignorance of the Republican domination of Congress since 1994. Congress, not the President, controls the purse strings of the government. Congress approves the budget and passes it. It is congress who apportions money to states for infrastructure, Medicaid, SChip, schools and an entire host of things that can be added to this list. The services provided to Scarecrow through his locality may in fact have been funded through community block grants or municipal bonds, partially made available (or entirely) through funding from the Federal Government.

Then there’s comments from the genius who writes as TXGP17 (he’s from the North Carolina)

I am a member of the IAFF, but on a personal level, I'm anti-compulsory-Union. In my State, it's open shop, or voluntary. I choose to be member to take advantage of some of the benefits offered by them, such as legal representation in the event of a motor vehicle crash. My Union has no collective bargaining ability.

A closed shop or union shop monopolizes the workforce, which leads to an inefficient cost of services. This produces higher wages at the expense of fewer jobs or excessive costs to the customer.

Not everything a Union does is golden. Look at some of the things that have happened in Boston. The Union opposed the Firefighters being drug tested. Maybe I didn't read enough details, but that's still hard to comprehend...

What I especially love about his post are the links at the bottom where he refers to Senator Obama as Barack Hussein Obama, because his middle name makes him a terrorist, obviously. This poster is really interesting. He’s posting on a Firefighter’s site about IAFF but then goes on to spout right-wing anti union talking points. What I find most interesting is the reference to closed shops.

In a closed shop, all employees are members of the union. When I was a Teamster, I worked in a closed shop. This is the fairest possible advocacy. Unions fight for the rights of everyone in that workplace through collective bargaining. When workers benefit from those negotiations without having to pay dues, well, it’s just plain wrong. In an “open shop” employees don’t have to pay dues to the union, however, the union then also has a balancing act to deal with in terms of numbers. They need to maintain 50%+1 to remain a union which is the situation my nurse friend is in a they have 53% of the nurses in the union. All the nurses in the hospital benefit from the collective bargaining and work that the union has done in terms of leave, patient ratios and benefits, but only 53% of the workforce who benefits from that work pays for the work. And this just sucks.

I’m always fascinated with the anti-union comments from wingers. Most of the time, they are the kind of out of touch comments I’ve come to hear so often from the Limbaugh and Hannity set that I just have to walk away. In the end, it’s just no use bothering because they simply don’t get the idea of solidarity. The concept that we’re all in this together and that together, we have power.

What I like about reading posts on the Firehouse is that there are a number of Democratic firefighters (these are the only ones I’ve ever known) who are willing to combat the egregious behavior and sheer ignorance of many on the Firehouse Site. They engage writers in discussion and hold their ground with links, facts and unbiased evidence and my favorite example of this kind of forthright discussion appeared in this same Obama endorsement thread:

scfire86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
The economy is a slow chaotic system. Policy changes do not have an immediate effect. If the government decides to invest more in the nations businesses through tax breaks and incentives it will take several years to show. Just the annual budgetary process and strategic planning will slow things down. Probably the most recent evidence of this was the stimulus checks. While I welcome the cut in taxes these checks will do nothing unless it becomes a permanent reduction.

According to you we won't know the effects for another 10 - 15 years. I love how prosperity under a Dem is the result of actions taken 15 years earlier by a GOP, but a decline in the economy is the instantaneous reaction to a Dem's policies. It's the best of both worlds. Unfortunately it is a total fallacy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
Nope, we had absolutely no business being there, those people did absolutely nothing to the U.S.

Same as Iraq.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
Absolutely self inflicted. He chose to have an affair with a little girl while being sued in a civil court for sexual harassment. He then made the matter worse by lying in a court of law.

And no one cared except folks like you. Also, could you explain why conservatives believe perjury is such a big deal? Their subsequent reactions to those GOPs who have committed the act have been non-existent. Yet they were outraged (OUTRAGED I TELL YOU) when Clinton did it. And he was ultimately acquitted of all the bogus charges brought against him. Something that didn't occur with the GOP. Bush commuted the individual's sentence and there were praises instead.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
The 9-11 commision

Where? What's funny is your own contradictions. Earlier you criticized Clinton for taking military to take attention off his personal issues resulting from an overzealous Special Prosecutor. Then you criticize him for not taking action to combat terrorism. When he did go after Bin Laden folks like you accused him of "wagging the dog." Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) responded to the cruise missile attacks which barely missed Bin Laden as Clinton's pursuit of "something unimportant." Your statements only continue to prove your lack of any understanding. You should stick to what you know. Which is a mystery at this point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
Yes, by doing nothing and failing to provide proper oversight. Bush found it and shut it done quickly.

That's a hoot and a half. Enron melted down internally when it's overgrown Ponzi scheme imploded. Bush had nothing to do with it. To the contrary, the Bush administration sought the advice of Enron executives in the formulation of its energy policy. Which has given us $4/gal gas.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrow57
Job security in the public sector is the exact reason a lot of government workers are slackers. Those are my tax dollars at waste

Welcome to America. There are many things I pay for that I don't like. I do my part knowing that with all its faults its still the best place to live. Whenever I've asked folks like you to point me to a place with a better quality of life and has lower taxes I get no answer.

If you’re looking for a discussion on the issues, the Firehouse forum probably isn’t for you, however, if you’re a firefighter and maybe looking for some discussions and interesting ones at that, I’d suggest that you add your voice to Firehouse. It’s really very entertaining and could really use some more voices of Solidarity.