This weekend saw an extreme example of the negative 20% of the voters.
Sam Stein, writing for The Huffington Post, used this headline on Saturday:
“Tea Party Protests: ‘Ni**er,’ ‘Fa**ot’ Shouted At Members Of Congress” (article HERE)
Joan Walsh, writing for Salon.com, provides a detailed and analytical look at the behavior of some activists involved in the year-old Tea Party movement. “Too much tea party racism” (article HERE)
The racist and homophobic shouts, spitting on Congressmen and a “Kill the Bill” disruption within the House galley (here) are extreme examples of the negative 20% of the community.
THE NEGATIVE 20%
Carter and Sumek, writing in ICMA’s Managing Fire and Rescue Services, talk about the growing influence of the negative 20 percent.
Local communities fall into a 20-20-10-10-40 political distribution: 20 percent have a positive opinion of local government, 20 percent have negative opinions, 10 percent will lean towards the positive or the negative. The remaining 40 percent are bystanders.
The negative 20% are never satisfied with any municipal response to their complaints. They maintain a basic distrust of local government, political leaders and managers. They make personal attacks on staff.
They misrepresent facts and information when speaking to the media. They exploit the Freedom of Information Act and the public hearing process, they are less than civil when they show up at meetings or hearings.
They vote.
They argue for greater citizen involvement, but if that approach is taken and the results are contrary to their own, they criticize the approach and process. Their activity drives away the average citizen.
Decades of gerrymandering “safe” voter districts by the party in power has increased the importance of getting more people to vote (CNN article).
The increased polarization of the parties has created an “us-versus-them” mentality (2005 Kimball/Gross presentation 28 page .pdf HERE). It may be easier getting the 10% who lean positive or negative to vote than the 40% that are bystanders.
The growth of blogs, social networking, 24/7 cable news and digital media has increased the impact and reach of the negative 20%.
LABOR ALLEGEDLY FUNDS ANTI-TEA PARTY WEBSITE
Joseph Abrams, reporting for Fox News on February 9th, noted a financial link between organized labor and a web site opposing the Tea Party. (updated article HERE)
Even without this issue, the core values of the Tea Party, especially a Constitutionally Limited Government, implies a smaller local government.
CONTINUING STREAM OF ARTICLES CRITICAL OF MUNICIPAL LABOR
On December 31 we posted Firefighter “AIG” Problem, describing the rising issue of some firefighter retirement systems, in terms of years-to-retirement, defined benefits payout, and double dipping.
We looked at recent articles critical of municipal labor in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. More articles are appearing in traditional and digital main stream media.
Last month we laughed as WBZ’s I-Team stalked Boston Engine 32 as it had the audacity to drive to a grocery store and purchase food every day. (post here)
We may be nissing a tipping point in public opinion of career firefighters.
TIME TO RETHINK OUR RESPONSE
There have always been questions on how we do what we do. Explainations that worked in 1995 or 2005 may not work now.
A colleague who is a chief fire executive told me last week that the public’s positive feelings about firefighters after 9/11 has been replaced by an impression that career firefighters are an expensive burden to city government.
Critics do not care about the decades of toil, sacrifice, research, and political capital expended to achieve current firefighter working conditions.
All they see is that YOU have what THEY do not.
They cannot go to the grocery store, exercise, play sports, study for promotional exams or SLEEP where they work. They think you should not be paid by the city to shop, exercise, play, study or sleep.
This imposition of this expectation on firefighter working conditions extend beyond the negative 20%ers.
In the “us-versus-them” mentality, we have become “them.”
How should we respond to criticism of our practices and procedures now?
Mike “FossilMedic” Ward
Maybe Jeff Bressler, The Fire PIO, can provide some pointers.
Also on FireGeezer…
- Is it “Abuse” when you follow the rules? – July 8, 2010
- Firefighter “AIG” Problem – December 31, 2009
- Too Inexperienced to Command? – November 5, 2009
- 20 Fewer FDNY Fire Companies? – February 1, 2010
Today's local paper has an article about a neighboring dept receiving a grant for exercise equipment. Last I checked, there were over 50 comments on the article online, and all but 2 of them were negative. Over the last few months, the most widely commented articles in this paper have been about our “jackpot pensions at the age of 45″, 9 day a month work schedules, side-jobs, grocery shopping, and sleeping on duty. Soon our union will find out if we lose our minimum manning and suffer layoffs, yet only 8 years ago our millage passed with 65% of the vote.
topv7051,
Thanks for the post, I think your experience is – unfortunately – not unique.
How do we turn this around?
Mike
I don't like the terms they and them. We or I can be them, depending on which side of the street I am on. I may not agree with everything the tea party does, I do agree with most. Like any organization, community or movement, there are some bad seeds( even in the FD), don't judge all because of a few.
I have been a voly for 28 years and my father helped start the department. In my time in the fd, I have seen many changes in the volunteer and career side. We use to ride around in not so fancy rigs. Now we ride in half million dollar engines and million dollar trucks. We are more likely to pull a splinter out of a kids finger then pulling a kid out of a burning building. There is now twenty stations protecting a community instead of four. Career fire fighters have taken over the volunteers. Unions will not let employees voly anymore in their own communities because that could be a paid job. Higher taxes replace spaghetti dinners. A lot of changes. Most good, some not so. The fire departments are not part of the community any more. We or they, need to educate the public on the things we do, the training required and the risk we (they) take. Why do you take the engine top the grocery store? Why do you get to exercise while on the job? Why do you get to watch TV? Why do you get paid while you eat and sleep?
Don't blame them when that is all they see. Educate them. Explain why. When more and more of the average peoples incomes are going towards taxes, expect us to work harder to justify our needs. Trust me, I understand. Tomorrow I will be at a town hall meeting justifying the need for a 5 million dollar fire station to replace a forty year old station.
Education and communication to the community needs to start at the top and must be a priority for the entire department. As pressure increases on local government to provide the same level of service with stagnant or decreasing revenues, it falls to leadership to determine what is truly a core service and what is a “nice to have” service.
Additionally, we should take Brunacini's advice and keep in mind how people perceive what we're doing in light of today's economy. Have a good, polite and well-researched reply ready when people ask you about things.
Q:”Why do you take the engine shopping every day?”
A: This way we're ready to respond immediately if a call comes in. We keep our crew together and that makes a huge difference when we arrive at a fire.
Q: “I wish I could get paid for exercising!”
A: Yeah, it is nice, but approximately 110 firefighters die in the line of duty annually, the majority of them due to cardiac issues. By exercising we're keeping the staff ready to respond to protect lives and property, AND we're being proactive on reducing workplace injuries and deaths which would cost the city even more.
Defuse, Inform and Educate…..
The public perception is only going to get worse as the pension underfunding hits more mainstream news. Also the debate between defined benefit and defined contribution plans is going to get extremely ugly over the next few years.
I cannot agree more, in addition, FF-Nation needs to be careful when quoting their sources, the likes of Salon.com etc. is known to be just as partisan, extreme and hatefilled as this so-called “negative 20%” that they claim to be fighting with this posting.
There is allot of things not understood by the public about firefighting and what goes on inside the four walls of a firehouse. With that being said our department launched a new program four years ago. We started documenting in the press everything we were doing. Classes, training, meeting, fires, equipment we use and etc. The result was a better understanding from the public. We gain more support and we able to launch a number of programs from fire safety for children and adults to more advancing schooling for our firefighters. The county, which has helped with some of our budget came to use and even said they did not realized how much it took to run, train and so forth. They ended up giving us money to purchase a newer rescue truck. All I can say it educate your public about your department. If you are a citizen and want to know what goes on call the chief or stop in and ask questions. Get to know your department and learn what you do and do not like but, most of all not matter what support your department. These will e the people supporting you if you ever have an emergency. Improvements can always be made in any department but, it can not be done with out support and understanding.
Sir,
Your answers to the questions are 100% correct, and have been used to rebut the complaints in the papers. Even when we lay out the valid reasons for our actions, we are still panned for them at a rate of 50-1. Problem is, as Bill pointed out, the people who vote are polarized into one of two camps-either fervent supporters or those that complain for the sake of complaining. We are not dealing with rational people. The complainers have an agenda, and there is nothing we can say or do to convince them that we are doing the best we can. It is getting especially nasty here in Michigan, as the decline of the auto industry has devastated our communities and turned people against each other.
MNChief:
Thanks SO much for you post. It is very helpful.
Mike
Rob, your abbreviated post here resembles a longer post on the Firefighter Nation facebook page.
Here is an extended response from both posts:
I was trying to make four points.
1) There has ALWAYS been a percent of the population that is opposed to local government, the “negative 20%” quote comes from International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) Fire and Rescue Services textbook, published in 2002.
2) Behavior of some individuals at Saturday's protest towards the elected members of Congress matches the ICMA description of the negative 20%.
3) Digital/social media has increased the reach of the negative 20% in influencing the 40% bystanders.
4) As Daniel Luechtefeld pointed out on the FFN page, echoed by topv7051 and MNChief here, municipal firefighters are encountering more criticism as the economy continues to crater.
My question is how can municipal firefighters effectively respond to questions of current practices and procedures.
Mike
You can't please all of the people all of the time. I like what Rick's department is doing, documenting, publicizing and educating the public and the elected officials as to what it takes to run a modern fire department. ESPECIALLY that they started BEFORE the current economic climate. Starting now opens you up to charges of doing everything you can to protect jobs, whether that's true or not. BUT, it's better to start late than never!
Rick, I'd be interested to know what the attitude of the rank and file was towards the program when it was started.
Thanks to Mike Legeros for commenting and providing a link from Raleigh/Wake Firefighting Blog! http://legeros.com/ralwake/photos/weblog/index.php
You can't please all of the people all of the time. I like what Rick's department is doing, documenting, publicizing and educating the public and the elected officials as to what it takes to run a modern fire department. ESPECIALLY that they started BEFORE the current economic climate. Starting now opens you up to charges of doing everything you can to protect jobs, whether that's true or not. BUT, it's better to start late than never!
Rick, I'd be interested to know what the attitude of the rank and file was towards the program when it was started.
Thanks to Mike Legeros for commenting and providing a link from Raleigh/Wake Firefighting Blog! http://legeros.com/ralwake/photos/weblog/index.php