Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
Morale…it is all about morale. Firefighters usually don’t have a huge audience when it comes to complaining about working conditions or pay and benefits. Occasionally we get all together and stage a public demonstration in order to have the media help us inform the public of our issues but it rarely works. In the end, as good as we may have felt while standing shoulder to shoulder with our brother and sister firefighters, we usually lose our battles to the bureaucracy.
With that end our morale suffers. Our morale also suffers under inept management and leadership, loss of pay and benefits, micromanagement, among other things.
The least we can ask of our employers is for proper living conditions. Houston firefighters are finding out what happens when their stations are not kept up properly. Firefighters are living without air conditioning in fire station 25. Councilwoman Jolanda Jones took it upon herself to bring the media into the firehouse to report on the lack of a working air conditioner, which she states is a basic necessity. The A/C unit has been broke for at least 2 months. Kudos to Councilwoman Jones, hopefully the A/C will be fixed soon.
Don’t the guys who are willing to do just about anything for their citizens and visitors of their city deserve the same basic living conditions!
Embedded video from <a href=”http://www.cnn.com/video” mce_href=”http://www.cnn.com/video”>CNN Video</a>
