No alderman took us up on the invitation in our Sept. 21 post to explain their “yes” vote on the new 3-year, 5%, no-layoffs firefighters union contract.  But a number of readers commented on that post. 

The following is one of those comments that we thought deserved “guest essay” status:

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I was directed to this site by someone who said I might learn some things about School District 64 here.  After reading up on D64 I read this post and your other ones on the firefighters contract, including the comments, and want to add a comment myself.

Let me say right off that I’ve got nothing against firefighters or teachers.  My mother was an elementary school teacher, and I attended nothing but public schools all the way through my MBA.  My personal appreciation for firemen goes back fourteen years, when a brigade of volunteer firemen in Medway, Ohio, saved my house from a fire that burned down most of my next door neighbor’s house. 

I moved my family from Ohio to Park Ridge almost ten years ago to take a job after my employer went out of business, owing me over ten thousand dollars in commissions that I was never able to collect.  Since then I have had three jobs, only one of which was in my chosen field, and I have been unemployed (“between jobs” ) a total of almost two of those ten years.  Because I make less in my current job than I made when I moved here, my wife has taken a part-time job despite our youngest child is still in D64 and could use a stay at home mom.  And my 401k, like many other people’s, has gone down from investment decline and from a withdrawal to get us past one of my unemployed periods.

But we aren’t complaing.  Unlike some other people we know, we are all still healthy, we still have a little equity in our home, and we probably look “normal” to anybody who doesn’t know about our check-to-check financial struggles.

The problem I have with the firefighters (and the teachers) demands stems from what they don’t have to do.  Almost none of them have to work a full year in the sense most of us in the private sector do.  None of them have to worry about their employer going bankrupt, closing down, or moving to another state or country or continent.  None of them have to worry about having their salaries reduced, or having to actually get results (make sales) to earn their paychecks.  None of them have to worry about managing their retirement fund so they might retire at 65 because none of them will have to wait that long to retire.

Maybe years ago firefighters (and teachers) were not treated as well as they should have been.  But that doesn’t justify the demands they are making today, in a terrible recession with a lot of people holding on by their fingernails.  As somebody pointed out, they can make even more extreme demands without any consequences because of the secret bargaining sessions that the public never hears about.  You compared the aldermen to the sheriff in Blazing Saddles, but I would compare the union’s attitude to Paulie’s in the movie Goodfellas, when he gets a piece of that tiki restaurant and drives the original owner bankrupt. “Business bad? F*** you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? F*** you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? F*** you, pay me.” 

I don’t care if the city gives the firefighters a three year contract if the compensation piece can be negotiated every year to adjust to economic conditions.  Who knows, maybe it could work to the firefighters’ benefit at some point?

I hope the aldermen will take up your invitation and explain why they gave in to a bad deal for the taxpayers.

Thank you.