to save anything from a fire and well there at it, why not take away there medical as well?

And, what will happen when many cops and firefighters quit and leave??? Who can they hire?

There is a storm coming and in my opinion it's not going to be pretty.

The huge majority of us don't do it for the money, we do it to help out our fellow citizens. I retired from the Phoenix Fire Dept. so I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Even if they had reduced my pay to minimum wage, I would still go out and do my job to the best of my ability.
And what about Volunteer Firefighters? You think they do it for the money?

expect you people to live on minimum wage. I get your point, but you still need to be paid appropriately for the risks of the job you are doing.

I agree, but please don't think that the majority of us do it for the money and bennies, although when I was with Phoenix Fire, I did make good money which was icing on the cake.

wage.

and the repukes.
Hey, that sounds like a band name, Rmoney and the Repukes.

and yes, you are correct, younger smoke eaters will gladly do it even for free... damn it, I did... but once you get a family that becomes a more difficult thing to do...

By the way, thanks for it... I paid with my back, I don't know about you?

once you get a family, you can't really do volunteer to much anymore.
I was lucky, during my 30 year career, I was never seriously injured, did have a floor collapse beneath me one time which resulted in a broken ankle, but other than that, just the usual bumps and bruises. My injuries were mostly psychological from having to do body recoveries. The worst were the children, that really fucked me up. Just enjoying retirement now.

Phoenix Fire Dept. is a paid, union dept.. If your talking about Volunteer FF's, then the answer to that is they usually have full time jobs and volunteer when not at their jobs.

Here is a tidbit of info, the nation's first ISO Class 1 all volunteer Fire Dept. is right here in NV, it's Fallon Fire Dept. All volunteer. That's quite an achievement. Most paid Dept. aren't ISO Class 1.

on edit: I'm retired after 30 years.

My uncle and godfather was a Boston Firefighter. He didn't do it because of the money, but he couldn't have done it without the money. He had a family to provide for.

Thank you for what you do. I think you are the bravest of the brave. You deserve a good income and benefits.

I will bet a lot of them will still vote GOP and blame the Democrats. Or Guns and God are more important. Better yet turn those duties over to the churches like all the domestic programs the GOP wants to give them.

There is a deepening dementia in this country I cannot understand. I will bet the public in Scranton just loves it. Public employees are overpaid you know.

much less healthy.

Minimum wage for a family might scarcely work if there are two incomes in the household and the rent is really low.

K/R

Then you might be able to scrape by, because after just surviving, there's nothing left.

And then there are the kids....no sense in letting those lazy kids off the hook....put them to work too...
Anything less is communism...why do you hate America?

it would be over $23 an hour!

could you put an excerpt out there of it.

This is the result when the govt keeps cutting taxes. Our taxes pay the salaries of these men and women. When revenue is cut, the infrastructure and our public servants suffer. WTF is wrong with people that they can't realize that simple fact? Does anyone care about anybody but themselves anymore?

Scranton police chief takes post at Lackawanna College

During the brief announcement in Mayor Chris Doherty's office Friday morning, Duffy said the move was "absolutely not" related to the city's fiscal crisis or the strife between the public safety unions and the administration.

As chief, he earned a salary of $83,000 until City Council cut his salary to around $80,000 at the beginning of the year. Like all city employees, he now makes minimum wage of $7.25 an hour

http://citizensvoice.com/news/scranton-police-chief-takes-post-at-lackawanna-college-1.1340117

* Yeah I know he is getting a better job...but Scranton has a bunch of colleges and a tourist trade that should be helping the coffers. Where is the money going?

did Doherty take home a paycheck that reflected the minimum wage too?

And guard positions at universities and colleges would have good benefits, too.

Corrected now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

The wealthy WANT us all working for minimum wage, they want us uneducated and part of a servant type class.

The only way to put a stop to this is to stand together, like we have done in the past.

the same pay that the prison slave labor gets: pennies per hour.

I'm talking a full "truck nutz" moon.

McGoff, the lone minority council member, responded, "I think the irony is that we (council) included $16 million of borrowing in the budget," but now won't act on a recovery plan that would allow that borrowing to occur.

http://citizensvoice.com/news/scranton-mayor-council-point-fingers-as-city-hits-rock-bottom-1.1340445

a McDonalds employee? Wow. Just. wow.

Most McDonalds start above minimum wage.

no matter how many days it is fit in to. And you might want to check in to those awesome "bennies", they have been being cut for years and are not half as awesome as people seem to think.

I dated FFs left and right a few years back. I know of what I speak.

Most were in the National Guard/Reserve (paycheck), most worked 24 on (um, one or 2 calls in that 24 hours....maybe one involved an actual fire...most involed going to the grocery store), alot of computer dating site time and 48 off (paycheck) and most owned/worked side jobs (paycheck).

I live DIRECTLY across the street from a firehouse. Haven't heard a siren in the last 3 months.

There is a reason one has to "know somebody" to get a FF job.

And hey, I respect them to death, but don't bitch about a "CAKE" job.

I'd be interested in knowing how many 15+ year veterans have HS diplomas, AAs or Bachelor degrees. Guess I'll look it up.

on edit: I'll define awesome bennies.....full pension, health, dental, short and long term disability, tuition reimbursement, 401k.....the list goes on.....bet their ER co-pay ain't $150 like my fiance's is.....just saying....

on edit one more time.....guess how many are married with GFs?

Sorry to be blunt, but the truth hurts sometimes.

I can tell you that my father worked a 40 hour 3 and 1/2 day shift which included spending nights and being on call 24 hours a day. Sleeping hours did not count as work hours even though they are on call.

In most local governments: full pensions have all but disappeared except for employees that have been there for years; dental insurance sucks for everyone; short and long term insurance are generally paid for by the employees; tuition reimbursement comes and goes depending on the budget and pays a small portion of the cost of a class; 401 ks are the new way to get your pension and were put in place to transition employees over from pensions, employees pay a much bigger share of these costs and take all of the risk of these gambling pensions.

Instead of bitching about what others get that you don't why not work to ensure everyone gets paid fairly, has good health and dental care, a good retirement plan and affordable education.

Come on, everyone knows about FFs.....

I'm not bitching about what they are getting paid......just bitching that they should be happy to have jobs with the bennies and opportunities that they have.

Maybe Arizona is different....

Seriously, I can't imagine a more lunatic response.

But then, I live in lower Manhattan and I have a good memory.

Maybe you should move away from Manhattan.

How much do NYPD FFs get paid annually?

That should improve yr temper.

hanging around the firehouse, lifting weights, checking out dating sites on the computer, going to the grocery store, watching tv

okay...maybe I don't have any respect for alot of them.....who says I have to respect them anyway?

Now nurses, I respect the hell outta them. They work their butts off for the entire shift. I should know....dealing with them at the hospital right now.

Are you nuts? You must live in a very small town, I was a Phoenix Firefighter for 30 years and we never had a quiet nite, a typical tour started with checking and inventory of all apparatus, then washing said apparatus, cleaning the station then usually, if not on a call, training, training, and more training, and if not training, our Engine Company would be out doing fire inspections, testing fire hydrants.
And we were darned lucky if we got to finish lunch, or dinner w/o getting an alarm for either medical, or fire. To top it off, we were lucky if we got a whole nights sleep.
You try putting on heavy turnouts with full SCBA and hauling axes, halligans, hoses, and going into a hot, smoky, burning structure, or rolling up on an accident with multiple victims who are suffering trauma or are dead.

Oh yeah, and if a shift had to be filled, we could be force hired whether we liked it or not.
We worked the Kelly schedule-24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 96 off. So w/o overtime, we worked 240 hours a month, how many hours a month do you work?

Cake job my ass.

and they still pull 240 a month.

And yes, it is a cake job... just ask all those yahoos who watch it in the movies!

Hauling hose was never my idea of fun.

must have been rural.

Lemme see, 24 hour shifts, every third day, that means, by my rough count at leaste 48 hours in the week.

That assumes no special events, or major disaster.

For the record, my local fire department spends the day chasing the radio.

nt

cake job for most

Last edited Mon Jul 9, 2012, 10:39 AM - Edit history (1)

Cake work, really.

So you are one of those who'd prefer 24/7 of smoke eating? Actually, a lot of that time is spent in training. You know shit like medical skills, vertical rescue, actual drills pulling hose and using hose,

You may think you got a clue, but you don't.

Oh and chasing the radio is going out on calls constantly.

In my little town, it'd exactly as you describe it.

The 7 firefighters are the top 7 earners in the town. They all make 6 figures (in a town with a $52,853 median family income)

24 "on" and 48 off. The total call volume required maybe one off-the-sofa event per day. Most if not all of them had self employment gigs to fill in the time off bringing their income up further.

It is a gravy gig, and a politically active one too. Whenever the topic of fire district consolidation comes up, they're the first to go door to door telling the elderly residents how long it will take for an ambulance to come to their houses. "Vote for us and no one gets hurt".

I was a city councilperson for 12 years, so I know what I'm talking about. Firemen are the only people paid to sleep.

But that's true. They write their own overtime checks. 7 guys can't man the station house TV 24x7 when they each have 4 weeks of vacation each year, but more staff wouldn't help when every call becomes overtime because the guy manning the station doesn't leave for a call... it's a public safety issue, you know.

The last guy who retired had a 13 months of vacation accrued and went out on disability. He now runs his contracting/homebuilding business fulltime while keeping 80%(?) of his peak earnings as a disability benefit.
The guy before that also had more than a year of accrued vacation... before he went out on disability too.

YMMV. Your husband's situation may be different than the one I know. My town is a Democratic town, and the firefighters are the most vigorous of republicans.

is just bull. If you actually checked the hours they are paid, sleeping hours are not included. I am sure of that.

They may not be busy the entire time they are at work (though as explained in other posts training and maintenance also take up a great deal of time), but they are required to be there and ready to go on a call at a moments notice. That means giving up time from families and abstaining from recreational activities they might prefer to be engaged in. Are you suggesting they should do that for free as I am sure city councilpersons always do?

Doherty needs to unleash Biden. And Sen. Casey while he is at it.

ON EDIT: http://www.wfmz.com/news/Regional-Poconos-Coal/Vice-Pres-Biden-returns-to-struggling-Scranton-for-4th-of-July-campaigns-stop/-/149546/15384964/-/1h8149z/-/index.html

I guess the VP is all over this!!!!!

EMS in Scranton is already private.

But to your comment: As a volunteer FF/EMT in NE PA, I have the same training and desire to help my fellow human being in time of need. I know you don't mean to disparage the almost 1 million US vollies in the fire service nor am I advocating volunteer urban emergency workers but be careful how you word things.

volunteer dept), volunteers are becoming harder & harder to come by.

the thought that a volunteer force is going to cover largely low-income cities like scranton is a joke.

people need to eat.

I wasn't advocating volunteer fire for The City of Scranton. Rather I made the observation that if Scranton didn't have fire protection for whatever reason, they would be forced to get it from somewhere outside of the city fire dept which might be a volunteer outfit.

I didn't mean to offend anyone and yes I'm well aware of the challenges to volunteer fire and rescue and related costs in time/money...

At the risk of being misunderstood, outside of people protection, emergency workers (FF, EMS, Police) do most of their work (ie: property protection) for the insurance companies. Years ago, paid fire companies were paid by... the insurance companies. Today, fire services (paid and volunteer) get some funding called Firemen's Relief This comes from a tax on insurance policies.

the same equipment not so much. I don't know how it works for y'all, but we had to buy a lot of our own gear. To the point I quit because I was tired of dealing with the bullshit fundraisers, the whining teabaggers, and spending so much of my own money that I couldn't afford much else. That stuff is godawfully expensive.

Volunteer emergency services are nothing more than a way to give a city/county the ability to have something without paying for it, then complain when it doesn't function as well as they think it should. Being a FF or EMT is a job and they should get paid for their time and their skill.

Of course your experience might be completely different. I was one in SW Alabama.

I stay on the volley side because current pay for EMT-Bs around here is about < $15.00/hour and that would not pay my expenses. So I remain an office worker and run Fire and EMS calls on my free time. Again, I'm not saying cities should use vollies, however even in a class 2 twp like mine the only service the twp must provide by law is fire protection. Not parks, social services, not trash removal. The law here doesn't even require the twp to have it's own fire dept, rather they must have a way of providing it (fire protection).

The city has no money and obviously revenues are in the toilet. I'm glad I'm not the one that has to solve this problem. Everyone is losing in this situation.

Rather than be pissed they get minimum wage, we perhaps should be work harder to assure minimum wage for those over 18yo is a living with dignity wage. Though I guess there's no harm in both being pissed and working harder to get a better min wage.

As pointed out by Hollande in France, a max wage for those entities that receive any government funds, grants, contracts, etc. should also be implemented asap.

is that more people will realize that minimum wage is not enough to live on. An equally important part of the equation is ensuring that everyone willing to work can find a job.

how do you like your tax cuts NOW?

No one is going to risk their life for the love of it, and if those brave people aren't paid enough to support themselves and their families on, then I think they'll be moving on to green pastures.

Corbett is an asshole

No firefighter should be risking his or her life for minimum wage.

if they walk en masse, the city would be justified firing every one of them and then they could forget about ever getting hired by another Fire Service.

Priorities will shift.

involved in a political pissing contest with the city council.

there might be a different outcome.

But those damn Unions cut into profits (or in this case, keep firefighters from being run by a private corporation) and donate to Democrats.

but not in this case. I say this as a person with deep roots in the fire service in NE PA. Not just a (volly) FF and EMT, I'm an officer in my county firemen's association and a staff member of the regional EMS council. I have some credentials and some knowledge of this situation. Not just yours but the bulk of the posts on this thread suffer from a lack of information. The Mayor of Scranton is not trying to get rid of the IAFF. And the situation will be resolved, the only question is when and how.

I do appreciate your feelings of frustration with the pukes attitude with respect to FF/EMS though.

Why would I do it for a person that rushes into a fire, instead of out of it, to save my ass?

Republicans are truly the dumbest people on the planet. They are trying to degrade public service into the Indian caste system of "untouchable" because they think it will save money. It will cost lives, dumbasses.

in my many years of being in the fire service not one time has anyone asked me about my salary (or lack thereof) as a condition for my ability to pull them out of the flames, extracate them from their vehicle or transport them to the ER.

Did you know that in the Lehigh Valley (PA) there are only two class 1 trauma centers? And only one of them is a burn center. A medivac flight from Monroe County to St. Lukes Bethlehem or LVCC costs around $18K. $18K and there are probably avg. 5 or 6 of them every day.

and I appreciate your service. I WOULD run into a house on fire to save my own neighbors. As a profession? I'm not cut out for it.

I sincerely believe you should be paid far more for what you do than minimum wage.

They could piss on it!

Let Corbett go fight fires at $8.00 an hour.

Why do you think there's a waiting list to just get into some classes at community colleges, better yet waiting to get a test and an oral board?

then this wouldn't be such a big deal. The minimum wage should at least give people the security of basic necessities. But no, let's keep it at $7.25...give me a break.

and the difference is STARK.

What is wrong with this country.

its not like they are only working 8 hours a day then not getting paid while they sleep, though minimum wage is still very low on this, but if you look at many municipalities you will find a considerably low hourly wage for this very reason.

Was a firefighter from 91-97 USAF.

wtf.
I can't believe that.

I'm sick to my stomach with what is going down in the your country.

to extract/exploit resources for major profit and the PA gov evidently doesn't feel the need to tax them at levels even approaching other producing states. This is a travesty.

How can the people of Scranton stand for this? Let the HUNGER GAMES begin.

Good luck buying homeowners insurance in Scranton, folks.

National crisis of banking industry in 2008, followed by the crash of the housing industry, followed by 8 million layoffs and firings could have something to ANY city's tax base. As I heard it on NPR's interview with Scranton's mayor who said, "I can't print money. After the workers were paid we had $5,000 left in the bank."

As I see it, Scranton is left with only one option at this time; bankruptcy. As the 'rust belt' goes, so goes the nation.

Sooner or later we will all be earning it.