Dear Editor,
In response to Tom Mulhern’s recent column about firefighter’s
benefits: Firefighters have a work-related shortened career. You
cannot do firefighter’s work for 45 years.
Dear Editor,
In response to Tom Mulhern’s recent column about firefighter’s benefits: Firefighters have a work-related shortened career. You cannot do firefighter’s work for 45 years. Just as a professional football player can’t physically perform his job after a certain age, a firefighter can not don the 40 plus pounds of safety gear and do the intense work required during an emergency response until he or she is 65.
It is a proven fact that the adrenaline that hits the body every time the alarm sounds does physical damage to every firefighter. Firefighters have to take ongoing classes on how to protect themselves from blood borne and contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS which they encounter regularly during health-related calls – calls that now are approaching 70 percent of total responses.
Question the severity of this current health problem? Check your local grammar school inoculation requirements.
Exposure as first responders not only exposes the firefighter but his entire family. Hazardous materials, fire, heat, smoke and high stress all take their toll. No physical impairment or disability laws protect a firefighter’s job. It’s simple, you are either 100 percent or your career as a firefighter is over. Usually there is a specified time limit for light duty work. Heal fast or say goodbye to your job.
Firefighters pay as much or more into their retirement as someone on Social Security. In fact, they also pay into Medicare. The city or other agency pays what any employer would as their share of the retirement package. Benefits such as retiring in 30 years come from the good fiscal management of the retirement accounts. If Social Security was managed in the same tight-fisted manner everyone could retire earlier.
Firefighters love their job. They also have wives, husbands and children to support. They would like to own a house and live where they work. They have all the obligations of other city residents. The recent comments in letters to the editor columns bashing binding arbitration ignore the only relevant fact: Firefighters DO NOT STRIKE!
No matter how frustrated and heated negotiations between the city and the firefighters become, firefighters refuse to use the tactic employed by other public employees like teachers, transit workers and public health nurses.
Firefighters will not leave you injured and in need. They will not leave you at the mercy of fire, smoke or hazardous chemicals. They will respond when you call. That is what they trade for your support when they need you. Binding arbitration is used as a last resort.
Perfect? No. Of course, both sides could always just stay home until it is settled. Everyone knows that the firefighters will not do that. The city counts on that when they talk tough. So a third party is called in to arbitrate. You will be grateful it works the next time you call 911.
Lee Petersen, Gilroy
