Members Who Defy Union Ban on Volunteering Vilified as ‘Sh*tbags’
For decades, officers of International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF/ AFL-CIO) union subsidiaries have used threats, fines and expulsions to deter the union rank-and-file from serving their own and neighboring communities as fire volunteers when they aren’t on the job.
The constitution of the IAFF itself has long prohibited career firefighters who are union members from volunteering.
Moreover, IAFF bylaws codified in 2021 actually include “volunteering” in a “list of serious charges such as embezzlement, assault on an officer, or membership in a terrorist organization,” as former Connecticut IAFF official Frank Ricci has publicly pointed out.
Paid and Volunteer Fire Fighters Often Work Side-By-Side to Serve Public
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Matthew Leen commented:
“The fact is, according to the National Fire Protection Association, more than 80% of America’s fire departments are either entirely or partly volunteer.
“And even unionized, all-professional departments often count on help from staff members of volunteer departments located nearby in order to put out major fires.
“For example, on June 24, the paid staff of Allentown, Pa.’s department, who are subject to IAFF monopoly-bargaining rule, received critical assistance from volunteer firefighters as they worked through the night to get under control a six-alarm fire that had broken out at a former furniture factory.”
Retired IAFF Boss, U.S. House Candidate Is ‘Speaking Poorly of Good People’
“Unfortunately,” continued Mr. Leen, “power-hungry IAFF bosses are putting their desire for ever-more dues money over public safety and taxpayers’ interests as well as over the God-given right of professional firefighters to serve their communities in the manner they choose during their spare time.”
One longtime IAFF official who is now in the spotlight for his crass denigration of “two-hatters” — that is, professional firefighters who also serve as volunteers — is Pennsylvania Democrat politician Bob Brooks.
Mr. Brooks, who was the top boss of the IAFF union’s Keystone State subsidiary since 2021, is now running, with ample help from Big Labor, for a U.S. House seat in a hotly contested “swing” district located in the Greater Lehigh Valley.
In an April Facebook post that was first flagged by the Washington Free Beacon in June, Mr. Brooks berated IAFF members who defy the IAFF ban on volunteering as “scab[s]” and “sh*tbags”:
“I am so tired of you two hatter sh*tbags,” fumed the former IAFF kingpin. “If your [sic] offended, please delete me.”
Not surprisingly, volunteer firefighters who live in the district Mr. Brooks aims to represent are indeed offended.
The Free Beacon quoted Dave Johnson, a longtime fire volunteer in Plainfield Township and former steelworkers union member: “To me, you should commend volunteers . . . . This guy is speaking poorly of good people.”
‘Big Labor Won’t Brook Any Dissent From Actual American Workers’
“Bob Brooks is all too typical of union bosses across America today,” said Mr. Leen. “Big Labor won’t brook any dissent from actual American workers.
“And Mr. Brooks’ open contempt for the views of union members who disagree with him illustrates why monopoly power is especially dangerous in Big Labor’s hands.
“Today, in many states like California, Illinois and New York, IAFF and other union bosses wield effectively equal authority with public officials who are accountable to taxpayers to determine how government employees are compensated and managed.
“IAFF bosses’ decades-long war against two-hatters and volunteer fire departments is an especially outrageous illustration of the fact that Big Labor exploits the special legal privileges it has in many states to serve its own interests, rather than the public interest. But it is only one of many.
“In order to protect the rights of public employees as well as to protect taxpayers’ pocketbooks, the National Right to Work Committee has fought again and again to block the passage of statutes mandating government-sector union monopoly bargaining in states that don’t already have them.
“Just this year, for example, Committee members and officers in Virginia led a successful charge to stop, at least for now, enactment of Big Labor-backed legislation promoting the coercive unionization of roughly 500,000 civil servants in the Old Dominion.”
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