Mission Creep at the L.A. Fire Department

The LAFD (The Cry Babies, like I call them) is the huge pink elephant in the leaving room that no one what's to acknowledge that is there. They keep feeding it more and more money thinking that that will solve the problem. It's never going to happen. Recently on channel 5 news, they showed how people can donate money to buy LAFD stair chairs and special washing machines to wash their turn outs. An organization as to donate those items because they city won't buy them. Are you serious? Where is all the money going to? All the money from all the props we vote on, where is that money? It's used to pay fire kent their huge salaries, that's where it's going. You all them and they transport you, you get a bill. So it's not a free service provided by tax payers money.

The media and the fire dept union as done an amazing job at brain washing the general public that they are needed. The fire dept is only needed to fight fires, that's why they are called the FIRE dept. but they are not an absolute necessity when it comes to EMS (emergency medical services), which makes about 90% of their call volume.

Private ambulance companies could be used for that. It would save the city a huge chunk of money. The city would not be responsible for the salary of the EMT's, their benefits (including retirement plans), ambulance maintenance and operating costs, liability insurance, station maintenance cost, and more. EMT's and Paramedics working for private ambulance companies get paid peanuts compared to LAFD firemen. The starting salary for an EMT is about 9.50 to 10.50 per hour,mane 13.50 per hour for paramedics (down from 15.00 dollars a few years ago).

I've heard of medics working for private ambulance companies making 50 thousand dollars per year working for private ambulance companies. But they are the exception and they pretty much live at the station. Picking up all the over time they can handle. I know guys that work 24 hr shifts for 5 to 6 days per week to make that much. All that effort to be offered lousy benefits and high prices and oftentimes no retirement plans. This is why I call the fire dept, in particular the LAFD cry babies. They have their cake and they want to eat it too. Give me a break.

By comparison, about 7 years back, the starting salary for an LAFD firemen was about 42 thousand per year. FDNY (New York City Fire Dept.) was about 24 thousand. Now LAFD firemen start at about 52-54 thousand per year, NY City Fire Dep is about 34 thousand. For what I've been told by several people in the field, the LAFD is the highest paid fire dept in the country.

The fire unions uses all kinds of different excuses to fool people into believing that we need the fire dept the way it is right now. Actually, they want us to believe that all the problems with the FD is due to money. Which is true but not because it needs to be that way. For decades I've been listening to the LAFD bitch and moan about money. Every time they are place under the microscope about response times and such, they always use the excuse of..."not enough money and personal." It's always the same excuse.

Fire union claim that switching to private ambulance services would lower the quality of service. I don't believe that to be true. First, private ambulance companies don't have the luxury of using the same excuses as the FD. Also, if they don't perform at the expected level, there is always another ambulance company ready to take over the contract. Which is exactly what happened to AMR. They lost some of their previous coverage area to McCormick and other ambulance companies because they were slacking off on their response time by a few seconds to a minute. These companies are under a lot of pressure to perform. All the fire dept has to do I point the fingers at politicians and say..."it's not us, those guys in public office are not giving us the money we need." Excuses, excuses, excuses!

I'm sure I'll get some heat for what I'm saying here. It seems that there are some LAFD butt kissers in here. Willing to believe or say anything. They can fool the general public but not everyone. Some of us know the truth.

I once said to a now retired Los Angeles Firefighter / Paramedic's gril friend at a New Year's Eve Party..."How does it feel to be almost married to a millionair?"   He looked at me.  My return was, "The L.A. Times published how many hours of over-time you're working, and you have no time to spend it." 

This article paints a picture of the department that is way out of context in a lot of areas. It’s quite infuriating to read actually. Every organization could use a little adjustment and fine tuning from time to time yes, but this is scrutinizing a whole department when it actually falls on those in charge of it as a whole, not the men/women working in the field. There is a lot of talk of how much the LAFD gets paid, where they live, family life etc... Well, lets break it down: 

1. The average american working full time works 40 hours a week in a 5 day span. LAFD works 24 hour shifts. That’s 72 hours in just 3 days. Sometimes even 96-120 hours a week depending on the need for them to cover others shifts. 
2. These guys get paid for what they’re willing to do... Give up their life for someone they don’t know. How many of you average people out there are willing to do that? Sure you’d put your life on the line for your family, but what about everyone else in the world? Are you going to run in and assist a gunshot victim bleeding from multiple wounds that you know is HIV positive? Probably not. These guys do. They put their selves in dangers way 24 hours a day when on duty. No matter how big or how small the risk may seem... They do it. That’s what they get paid for. 
3. Not only communicable diseases are they exposed to... Lets not forget to mention the fact that they are exposed to carcinogenics and other toxins that over time create disease in them, such as cancer. That’s another risk on the job. 
4. They don’t get to go home after work and commence for dinner with the family. They give up time with their families to help strangers. That includes missing firsts for their kids, missing school functions and plays, etc. They work birthdays, anniversaries, holidays... There’s no rescheduling those type of things or taking off early...
5. A lot of fire wives do stay home to raise their children instead of working: wouldn’t you if you were partially a single parent if your spouse was gone for days at a time? It’s not easy to find a nanny to stay 5am-8pm just to help maintain a daily routine... If fire wives did hire someone else to do everything while their spouse is at work they would be scrutinized for that too. 
6. With a job like theirs, why would you want to work in the same area that you live? It hits too close to home sometimes. If they can live further away and commute like thousands of other people do for other types of jobs what does it matter? As long as they show up on time right?! 
7. Their pay is a reflection of what they do and what they are willing to do... That’s a fact. Being realistic though, they are in a higher tax bracket so in reality, They may be making $180,000 a year and only bringing home $80,000 after taxes and union dues, medical insurance, and pensions. Yes, they fund their own pensions. 
8. Regarding LAFD as a free mobil health clinic... Pretty sad to say but society has brought that on themselves as well. Los Angeles is crawling with illegal immigrants and people on well fare that have no medical benefits and most likely unemployed. It’s pathetic that they are too lazy and ignorant to go to a regular clinic or a doctor. Majority of them are well aware that if they call 911 with a complaint of head pain or sore throat, they have to be treated. A rescue has to be brought out. If it wasn’t, that person is being neglected. It’s also known that if they are brought into an emergency room by an ambulance, they are seen right away. If it’s a homeless person, they know the can get transferred, have a hot meal, a shower and be sent on their way. It’s not the fault of LAFD that all of these things occur. They are simply doing their job and trust me when I say that they aren’t happy about getting woken up in the middle of the night to go on runs that are not life threatening. 
9. There needs to be outreach education classes taught in junior high school as to what constitutes the use of 911. If people were more educated and aware of resources available to them besides just calling 911 if it’s not a life threatening emergency, everyone would be better off. 

There are a lot more points I could make here, and as a fire wife, I don’t think any of you have any right to judge the LAFD and their men/women for what they do. “holding up a wall”... Really?! What if it was your son/daughter/mother/father, etc. that they transported in dire need of medical attention and they just dumped them off at the hospital? None of the family had been notified, the only people that know anything about the situation or the patient is the paramedic/fireman that was first on scene. The medical attention they received in the rescue was what really saved their life... The nurses and doctors are just stabilizing them now. LAFD sticks around to make sure the patient is taken over in a professional manner and all bases are covered. It’s unfortunate that our society is sue happy but that’s the reality. If LAFD doesn’t run these calls and stick around for patients by “holding up walls” and something goes wrong after they’ve just dumped them... Guess what?! That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Then what? The city gets to settle all these cases and pay out more than what they were paying LAFD to do in the first place. 

Whoever this reporter is that twists reality and says whatever needs to be said for a good story... Bash them all you want but until you’ve put yourself in their lives for a full segment or even just one damn shift, you have no idea what it’s like... For them or their families. Shove it. 

 A few issues regarding this article:

1. We should seriously be asking ourselves why we continue to use the 24-hr shift model in urban fire and EMS system, when it has been clearly demonstrated that the adverse effects of this type of shift work negatively impact patient care and the providers working them.  In fact, the IAFC published an article detailing the issues with these types of shift, yet the fire unions and the cities, all of whom claim to be acting in the interest of the citizens, simply ignore this issue (http://www.iafc.org/files/progssleep_sleepdeprivationreport.pdf).

2. LA County FD has its share of issues too.  For example, what sense does it make to transport every patient Code 3 when the patient's medical condition does not necessitate such an emergent transport?  There has been clear evidence to show that transporting a patient Code 3 does not improve patient outcome, and may actually be adverse to patient care.  As a Paramedic for 24 years, and having worked in several large urban EMS systems, there is little justification to be transporting patients this way when you are so close to a hospital.  LA CO FD claims it is to get the crews back into service faster.  If that is the case, then they need to add more unit hours instead of risking public safety by transporting everyone with lights and sirens.  

3.  Why does LA FD, and may fire departments for that matter, insist on using static deployment models when it has been shown that adjusting unit hours and locations based upon statistical analysis results in better response times and operational efficiencies?  The reason is the unions.

EMS managers and field personnel should all drive to provide the highest level of care in a patient centric EMS system.  Unfortunately, many managers and providers ignore what the real focus of EMS is supposed to be: The patient.

And before people start commenting that I do not know what I am talking about, let me give a little background.  I have been a Paramedic since 1989, and have worked in several urban EMS systems as a 911 medic, including Oakland, Kansas City, St. Petersburg, and Albuquerque.  In addition, I have both a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Master of Science Degree in Management with a concentration in Health Care Management 

My hearts go out to my brother and sister firefighters in the LA area. This same attack on public safety was waged in the San Diego area several years ago with everyone jumping on the band wagon, mostly those who do not know what a firefighter does. The author wants the readers to believe that it's those lazy firemen making 200K that are responsible for everyone’s lot in life.  Not once did the author look to the real cause of this issue which is an out of control healthcare system where our emergency rooms have become the MD's office and our ambulances the taxi for millions of Americans. All of this is wrapped up in laws that protect these "patients" and require the response, treatment and transport.  So why not demonize these heroes? They did it in San Diego quite effectively. I can remember years back when people would walk up and shake your hand and thank you for your service and now it usually a rude or inappropriate comment about city slackers.

If you want the LAFD for a non-emergency call in the city of Los Angeles, then dial 311 or (213) 473 3231

To frame the argument as either fireman or private agency drive miss daisy, misses the point.

It should be framed as anybody but the fire department.

Not only are you talking about crazy wages to drive an old lady to the hospital. These guys are literally paid to sleep as well.

Its not only homeless people calling for rides, how many times do you see an old lady short of breath being attended to by two firetrucks and an ambulance. 

They could have an ambulance only service with drivers working 8 hour shifts, it could be a city run operation if it makes the non-privatizers happy.

Is there anything more inefficient in this world than the LAFD?

Even though I agree that the LA City staffing model is not necessarily the most efficient out there I think that many of the comparisons that are made in the article by this author reflect his/her ignorance and lack of real research.  No real solutions are offered, only vague comparisons to County or Private scenarios that aren't necessarily "Apples to Apples".

While fires are down nation wide, firefighter deaths are not.  The training and preparation requirements  remain the same regardless of whether the department has one fire per year or one thousand.  In fact, the fewer fires a department has increases the risk to the firefighters fighting them due to lack of experience.  Should departments refrain from engaging in "Macho Training Academy's" because they have fewer fires?  Are the lives of those firefighters somehow less important now because they respond to fewer structure fires?  

There is also a contradictory point made  by the author in regard to billing.  On the one hand he/she laments the fact that LA City has highly paid firefighters/paramedics transporting patients and then they subsequently bill the various insurance companies large sums for the service.  Later in the article the author states that private ambulance companies, with lower paid EMT's, provide the same service, sometimes having to be supplemented by firefighters and then bill the insurance companies even higher rates.  Huh?  What's your point here?  How is this better?  I guess the private ambulance company owner should make the money rather than the people providing the service?  The bottom line is that the vast majority of private ambulance company employees, whether EMT or PM are not career employees.  They are short term, stepping stone positions and as a result the overall quality of care is not as high as career fire EMT's and PM's in general.

Another fallacy presented by this author is that counties or cities that use private ambulances necessarily have better availability, that's not the case.  Private ambulances wait just as long, if not longer, at hospitals as fire based ambulances.  Most cities and counties that use private ambulances don't contract for more ambulances than they might have had with the fire based system.  As a result the response time impact on patients is generally the same if not worse.

There are a ton of issues that the author fails to include in the conversation, the impact of individual community expectations and what they are willing/able to pay for or do without.  The liability issues that organizations like the ACLU would gladly jump on, the inability to compare one region or demographic area to another, etc.

I guess my main point is that even though I think that LA City could improve in many ways this article represents the typical crappy excuse for journalism that we've been stuck with and unfortunately people who don't know any better develop opinions based on it.

 Private ambulance companies are chomping at the bit for LA City to adopt the LA County model in order to make billions of dollars.  This article is clearly sponsored by private corporations to anger the public and skew the facts.

There's no cost savings when a County Paramedic has to ride along in the contract ambulance because the patient requires advanced life support. The real challenge is to match the level of care to the level of the problem, and do it in a manner that's efficient and maintains quality control.

The City of Escondido operates a system where every fire engine has a paramedic and provides first response. As the county does, it differentiates between initial response and patient transport, but uses a mixed model where some transport units are staffed by the fire department and some by non-sworn fire department employees who are certified paramedics.

The advantage over the LA County model is every patient transported has a paramedic with him/her. You avoid the situation where a patient who was believed to have a minor problem goes south during transport and there's no one but an EMT to treat him/her. On the other hand, you also reduce the cost of the personnel who are riding the wall.

For mid-sized cities particularly, I think the Escondido model is going to be the wave of the future.  It provides good value, quality control, and avoids the problems with contracted private ambulances which have a long, colorful, and frequently alarming history that includes some of the cities your article mentions.

I think every metropolitan area in the country is facing the same problems. I'm a RN and work in an ER in Boston... Aside from the "street clinics" run by EMS, there is the usual Urban Sick-Call, and many people call EMS because they think if they come in an ambulance they won't have to wait.

For example; while triaging an ambulance... RN: "so why did you call an ambulance?" Pt: "I need the morning after pill." RN: "Uhh ok, so you need plan B because plan A didn't work?" Pt: "no stupid, I'm going out tonight and I needs the pill!"

Ok, have a seat in the waiting room, we'll see you in about 8 hours..

How much does the LAFD union leader get paid ?   $735,000 

You know, the LAFD should sign up people they assist  for food stamps and register them to vote. Maybe give them an Obama phone too. The blue model at work. LOL

The 47% have learned how to work the system. Nice firemen can give them a free ride to the air conditioned emergency room. Law requires both (FD and ER) to provide assistance no matter the emergency or lack thereof. As the free loaders grow it will only get worse. It is unsustainable.

Let me go get a towel so you can clean yourself after you get done kissing some fire dot a$$.

@savingsavy When people get on a roll scapegoating others, be it Blacks, Jews, Unions, etc., all rational thought goes out the window.  All the points you made are things which any reasonable person who know intuitively.

I challenge people who are so hostile to paramedics and firefighters to be sure to tell the paramedic who comes to save their son's life after falling into the swimming pool how greedy and horrible the paramedics are.  

We had a Battalion Chief appear at a public meeting recently and explain the perils faced by THE PUBLIC from an underfunded LAFD.  The meeting was about the June 2013 Grand Jury report recommending that the City restore all the cuts to the LAFD and pointing out that people have died as a result of the budget cuts and furthermore that the city council knew people would die as a direct result of the cutting of the paramedics budget.  What did the group do?  The exact opposite of what the Battalion Chief recommended -- they supported the cuts by tabling any motion to support the Grand Jury recommendations! 

The seeds for corruption at the LAFD was laid by Mayor Riordan when he destroyed the civil service for the top levels and placed the Fire Chief and other city departments under the political power of the major.  Thus, we have a situation where the Chief is like a territorial governor appointed by the Emperor in Rome; he answers only to the corrupt political bosses.

Are mayors and councilmembers like Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Wesson vindictive?   You bet they are.  The rank and file in the LAFD can be harassed out of the department if someone like Garcetti gets wind that any paramedic or firefighter tells the truth to the public.  If Garcetti knows Sayingsavy's real identify, he can expect retaliation, but the public will continue in its orgy of Union Bashing.  That's why it took a Grand Jury that takes testimony in secret to do an investigation that laid the blame for needless deaths at the doorstep of Garcetti, but the public prefers anti-paramedic and anti-fire fighter bigotry over holding the true culprits liable.

Lets not forget that everything you see at a firestation is paid for by the fireman. They supply their gym equipment, blenders, furniture, electronics, etc. It costs them about $20 a day in house dues just to function with basic neccessities like toilet paper and cleaning products. Then they still have to eat. That costs too!!!

@mark3070 Facts, professional expertise, and experience count for nothing in face of politicos who see the LAFD as a place to raid for tax dollars in order to give more money to their political backers.  The purpose of the Union Bashing is to turn an ignorant public against the rank and file paramedics and fire fighters.

Just wait a year or so for Garcetti to decide that the paramedics need to be privatized and become a fee for service for profit business.  Then paramedics will get minimum wage and no benefits.  After the CRA was killed off due to political corruption, the mayor needs a source of revenue top gives to the billionaires like Aarons to build his Millennium Earthquake Towers.  There will no no $ for either the LAFD or the LAPD because Eli Broad and CIM Group don't make any money from the City's providing life saving services.

This article, and many like it from other cities, want you to believe that somehow the City would be better off with less firefighters and that a group of younger, lesser trained, $11.00 hour men and women will solve all your problems. They point ot fewer fires and infer that firefighting is an obsolete skill which can be easily handled by automatic sprinklers or a group of volunteers. The fact is that many of these small fires are being extinguished when they are small because of good firefighters and good training. I have seen some bazaar statements come out of public officials who use statistics to motivate privatization. One such statement was to staff fire stations only when the statistics support that a fire will occur. Another was to send only reserve fire apparatus to false alarms so that we don’t put wear and tear on our front line apparatus. Who knows when a call to a fire is a false alarm or when a fire is going to occur? I would hate to live in a neighborhood where the fire station was shut down due to statistics and had a fire in the middle of the night.

@Jipali 

Why should it be anybody but firefighters?  Because they work 24 hours shifts?  Unless you propose a system where coverage isn't provided 24 hours a day it doesn't really matter whether a person works an 8, 10, 12 or 24 hour shift when it comes to total cost does it?  You're still paying for 24 hours of coverage.  Are you concerned with total cost or how much individual people make for providing the coverage everyone expects?  If I work 4000 hours per year should I make the same as someone who works 2000 hours per year? That's what we're talking about here, you have fewer people providing the same coverage, as a result they are making more money for working more hours.  There are total cost savings associated with running a program that includes overtime as a result of the high cost of benefits, unfortunately the press is unable or unwilling to report that aspect of the argument.

@jfitzgerald3 

The fact of the matter is this- The City of Los Angeles strictly controls the rates by ordinance that any private ambulance can charge. No more $ and interestingly enough,.... no less $. 

As for insurance, you can bill the controlled rate but it rarely pays what is actually billed. If you collect 40% of what you bill, your lucky.

@occamsrazorblade  They would prefer to pay min wage and as that crook Dick Riordan wants, end their pensions.  The more costs that Garcetti can shove onto the private citizen, the more tax dollars he can give to his buddies.

@occamsrazorblade  

Do you really think it is worth "Billions of dollars"?  If it was,  How could the City be losing so much money on it?  You should probably think harder before you type.

@EscoJer Wait- LAFD pays their guys like this, and they're only EMTs, not even paramedics? You have to be kidding me.

@scottzwartz we wouldnt have to privatize anything if city unions had a conscience and worked with a sense of passion for the city and what they do... instead it's a paycheck and a HUGE one at that. 180k AVERAGE?! holy fuck faces batman! I've always wonders why in the hell a hook and ladder spewing gads of diesel fumes and blocking traffic were being deployed to check up on homeless people. Now I know... its to bill time to justify the vehicles and salaries. The LAFD the LAPD and the DWP all over protect their jobs, their hours and their money and pensions to the point of cartel like scandal. I was honestly once a huge union supporter but these public unions need to calm down and allow the hiring process to ween out the old guard and let in more people who will work for less and be just as passionate if not more about their jobs.

@savingsavy

 @savingsavy When people get on a roll scapegoating others, be it Blacks, Jews, Unions, etc., all rational thought goes out the window.  All the points you made are things which any reasonable person who know intuitively.

I challenge people who are so hostile to paramedics and firefighters to be sure to tell the paramedic who comes to save their son's life after falling into the swimming pool how greedy and horrible the paramedics are.  

We had a Battalion Chief appear at a public meeting recently and explain the perils faced by THE PUBLIC from an underfunded LAFD.  The meeting was about the June 2013 Grand Jury report recommending that the City restore all the cuts to the LAFD and pointing out that people have died as a result of the budget cuts and furthermore that the city council knew people would die as a direct result of the cutting of the paramedics budget.  What did the group do?  The exact opposite of what the Battalion Chief recommended -- they supported the cuts by tabling any motion to support the Grand Jury recommendations! 

The seeds for corruption at the LAFD was laid by Mayor Riordan when he destroyed the civil service for the top levels and placed the Fire Chief and other city departments under the political power of the major.  Thus, we have a situation where the Chief is like a territorial governor appointed by the Emperor in Rome; he answers only to the corrupt political bosses.

Are mayors and councilmembers like Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Wesson vindictive?   You bet they are.  The rank and file in the LAFD can be harassed out of the department if someone like Garcetti gets wind that any paramedic or firefighter tells the truth to the public.  If Garcetti knows Sayingsavy's real identify, he can expect retaliation, but the public will continue in its orgy of Union Bashing.  That's why it took a Grand Jury that takes testimony in secret to do an investigation that laid the blame for needless deaths at the doorstep of Garcetti, but the public prefers anti-paramedic and anti-fire fighter bigotry over holding the true culprits liable.

@firepmdan Garcetti and LaBonge reduced the size of Hollywood's FS 82 by 75% and moved it to gridlock Hell at the intersection of the 101 Freeway and Hollywood Blvd extending the time it takes to reach the Hills.  Then Garcetti and LaBonge took an engine company away from Los Feliz's FS 35, leaving the Hills without any paramedics much of the day since FS 82 and FS 35 often have to answer out of area calls since Garcetti took $200 Million from the budget and all areas are short on personnel.

What do the people in the Hills do?  The re-elect LaBonge and vote for Garcetti to be mayor and then engage in Union Bashing to further reduced the funds available to the LAFD.

Name one community organization that has asked the City Council to implement the Grand Jury's recommendations to save life by restoring the funding to the LAFD.

But, the myopic Hill people expect the paramedics to be at their home in two seconds -- even when they park their cars in the narrow roads in the Oaks and Beachwood Canyon making them impassable to even an ambulance, and the paramedics have to run the last two blocks up hill to reach the patient.  People in the Hills are not dying of cardiac arrest; they're dying of stupidity.

Remember, firefighters are paid well; but they are not just paid for what they do, they are paid for what they are willing to do. 363 brave firefighters proved that in New York on 9/11. You should look deeper into these articles to find the motivation of those who want to demonize these heroes; it's most likely directed behind the scenes by private ambulance providers who contribute large amounts of money into elected government officials and not into the health and welfare of the average citizens.

@jfitzgerald3

Your totally mixing things up. My point is we shouldn't be paying ambulance drivers while they are sleeping.

If you pay someone to work 8 hours they are working 8 hours. Part of the firemans paid shift is sleeping at the station so we are literally paying them to sleep.

You would still have 3 shifts and provide 24 hour service - but not paying people to sleep at sleep away camp.

@Osprey101 @EscoJer Both City and County are going through an evolution which will eventually result in every new hire being a paramedic, some current personnel are, some aren't.  In some smaller departments, 100 percent paramedic has been the rule for decades.  Depending on the contract, a private ambulance service could provide either an EMT or a paramedic. 

One of the things to keep in mind when you read reporting of personnel costs is that the figures being reported aren't just base salary, they're salary, overtime, pension, fringes, etc.  LAFD's starting wage ranges from 55 to 75 grand a year.

@hwoodca @DragonSlayer @firepmdan Well if you think the private ambulance companies have that same kind of money to throw at politicians, then you are truly clueless. BTW... Your statement ..."Means you dont know. You are only guessing" Is that based on YOUR guess? or do you know that for a fact? On the bright side, prove me wrong and you got yourself a paycheck. I look forward to your well thought out and insightful response. 

@DragonSlayer@firepmdanThe sattement "I would bet a paycheck that money contributions from private ambulance .." means that you do not KNOW.  You are only guessing. Try gathering facts.

@firepmdan 

You should probably research the amount of money the Fire Department unions contribute to government officials before making a "Most likely" statement like that. I would bet a paycheck that money contributions from private ambulance companies pale in comparison to the enormous amount of cash being thrown at key government players and parties by the unions. In 2010, the International Association of Fire Fighters tossed 15 million to federal candidates to ensure they got what they wanted. Do you think that included ensuring the health and welfare of the average citizen? My guess is no. 

In 2011, the union shifted its hose that sprays money directly on a campaign to fight anti-union efforts in state legislatures around the country.  The IAFF president made this statement, “With the survival of our union and the ability to preserve and protect the rights, wages and benefits our members deserve in jeopardy in the states, we have reevaluated how to get the best results from our political dollars,”

Do you think that included ensuring the health and welfare of the average citizen? Again, my guess is no.

@jfitzgerald3 @Jipali Union Bashers are like any other bigot -- all they know is to emote hatred without any facts.

I suppose this fool thinks that paramedics should be paid only while on an actual run as that is the only time he thinks that they are working. Whenever they get back to the station, they should sign out and their paid hours stop.

Let's apply that lunacy to the cops.  We won't pay cops except when they are actually chasing down a criminal.  The rest of the time, they are just joy-riding in the wonderful California sun.  Why should they be paid for that?

@Jipali @jfitzgerald3 You also say you shouldn't be paying firefighters when they are sleeping, so what do you think tthat ambulance drivers are doing when they aren't running calls?   Probably the same thing that the firefighters are doing....waiting for a call right?  Or if not sleeping in the front seat of the ambulance maybe doing what?

@Jipali @jfitzgerald3 So if there are 24 calls for service in a 24 hour period of time does it matter to you whether the person who responds was on an 8 hour shift or a 24 hour shift?  You seem very hung up on the sleeping thing, there is no research that I know of that indicates that the shift model that you advocate provides better service so I'm still at a loss to understand you position.  You seem ill informed as to what actually occurs out there as far as response time, probably because your frame of refrence is media driven.

@tselliot_2000 @scottzwartz The corruption at the top includes the leaders at the top -- Unions are as subject to Lord Acton's principle that power corrupts as anyone else in the world.

If we did not have corrupt politicos like Riordan, Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Wesson, etc., then we could have honest discussions about policies.  Both the public and the rank and file suffer when all we get is Union Bashing, lies and deceit.

In the recent DWP fuss, you never hard a single legitimate issue discussed because Garcetti did not want any honest discussion of anything.

The FireFighters Union did, however, provide a lot of data to uncover the massive fraud by Garcetti and the lethal danger in which we live.  But, even after the Grand Jury vindicated the Union, Garcetti refuses to restore the budget cuts, but he's leave all the developer slush fund in the Economic Development department untouched.  

Nothing will change because Angelenos hate facts but love to scapegoat.

@scottzwartz, dude you are spot on about the corrupt business folk and their contributions to the campaigns of their enablers, but then turn a total blind eye to the same corrupting influence of contributions made to these same folks from the public unions.

Whats up with this delusion since you make great points  about City Hall corruption, but then drop the ball when its obvious that corporations and developers aren't the only guilty parties. 

Did you support the Teamsters under Jimmy Hoffa just because they were a "union"? We need unions, but we can't condone corrupt, self serving unions, anymore than we can support the crooked practices of Arons and Millennial Partners.