Police Officers, Fire Fighters and members of the Military are often called brave and valiant Heroes. And they should be; much of what they do is dangerous and requires a degree of courage, selflessness and valor.

They are also, public (government) employees.

Police are at-risk every moment of every day they are on-the-job; from the cop on the beat to the patrol officer, every person they speak to, every car they pull over is a potential risk to their life. They serve voluntarily and selflessly, putting themselves in harms way every day.

Military personnel who serve in war-torn countries serve voluntarily and selflessly, and often give their lives in the course of defending democracy.  Stateside military personnel tirelessly train in preparation for the day they will be sent into battle.

Fire fighters are faced with treacherous work conditions when fighting fire. Of particular note are the California Department of Forestry (CDF) - fire fighters, who work tirelessly trying to prevent wild fires in our summertime parched state.

Missing from the discussion of selfless, tireless public safety workers, is the union representing the City of Sacramento Fire Department who of late, have been behaving more like hoodlums, than heroes.

Months ago when the City first started talking about the need for sizeable budget cuts due to a record budget deficit, the Sacramento Police Officers Association union (SPOA) almost immediately stepped up and agreed to make their $6.4 million budget work – cuts, salary freezes and all. The Fire Fighters union, Local 522 (an AFL-CIO union), instead turned on the machismo, did a few chest bumps, and began a months-long public tantrum played out dramatically in the media, by refusing to live with and manage their $5 million budget.

Remember the City of Vallejo’s recent Bankruptcy? It was their Fire Department that forced the city into the financial dire straights that led to insolvency, due to record and unsustainable salaries, benefits and pensions. This is a common theme in the state of California, and a severe lesson the City of Sacramento seems unwilling to experience.

The Sacramento Police Department and the SPOA actively educated members in order to get input and involvement on the inevitable budget problems the city was facing. Already down by 104 sworn staff officers since 2007, the Sacramento Police Department decided they could not afford any more police officer cuts. SPOA agreed across the board to accept the City’s budget, freeze salaries as of the last budget, and take cuts where deemed necessary in order to save jobs.

Contrast this with Local 522, the Fire Department union, and even city employee union Local 39: both unions propose sacrificing only lower paid workers, while insisting on raises for the older, more highly-paid workers. Many Sacramento residents are critical of firefighters for being hypocritical for claiming union “solidarity” with their firefighting “brothers” while rejecting a deal that will lead to the City laying off 50 of their “brothers.” Fire Fighters are behaving like thuggish teamsters, forgetting that they are city employees, and serve voluntarily.

Additionally, Fire Fighters have come under intense scrutiny for excessively high overtime abuse and ongoing abuse with sick-leave usage. With city fire fighters largely on-call while on duty, their antics are becoming intolerable.

What happened to the days when fire fighters called to a medical emergency showed up as a first-responder, in a two-person team driving a light-duty truck? The fire fighters’ demand for 4-man teams on every truck for every call, is unrealistic and absurd, and demonstrative of their refusal to prioritize staffing levels based on the nature of the emergency calls. Current staffing levels and call response tactics are purely to justify their pay, pensions and big budget.

This from the same local fire fighters union who recently threatened that they were considering sponsoring a ballot initiative that would seek to ban the City Council from ever reducing firefighters’ pension benefits without a vote of the public. 

This is all behavior inherent to Chicago-style unions, not most individual fire fighters. However, the fire fighters who consider themselves union members first and only secondarily fire fighters, made their voices clear at recent city council meetings.

When was the last time police or military personnel threatened using thuggish teamster tactics because they weren’t getting guaranteed pay and pension increases? Military and police personnel respect integrity and distinguished public service.

 Fire Fighters, police and military personnel choose their career paths voluntarily. Society honors those who choose careers that require courage and valor in the face of danger. But when Sacramento City Fire Fighters threaten tyranny while already receiving abundant wages, rich benefits and inordinately large pensions, while most of the rest of the city’s employers are laying off employees and cutting wages and salaries, we know that the union running the show has reached beyond usefulness and is moving into foolishness. Thus is the inherent problem with labor unions representing public employees.

Public employees work for the citizenry, but appear to work for the supremacy of the city, county or state. The law and the government are intended to serve American freedom and self-determinism — not the other way around.