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The contract includes no raises, solidifies and enacts pension reform (which legally the FD does not need to agree to btw), reversion of unused sick/vacation to previous, lesser payout amounts and another article that mischaracterizes the firefighters as schemers and yet Stasha, Cushman and I’m sure Cote are still up in arms that the firefighters haven’t agreed to give up enough. What incentive is there to help when where they do, they’re still slandered and criticized?

Stasha says the fact that there would be no raises mean nothing because the city workers and cops should have never gotten a raise either. With that line of thinking, the firefighters might as well deny the contract proposal and take the raise that was coming to them. Damned if you do, damned and vilified if you don’t.

Here’s the real rub. The politicians and pundits in this small city have allowed the situation between FD employees and the city to become completely caustic. By catering to the whims and fancies of a couple people mainly Stasha and Cote, the mayor and council are complicit in falsely portraying the firefighters as schemers and schiesters. They known it’s a false narrative and it was actually the city who botched the contact language and implementation of unproven policies with shoddy legal standing but it plays into their political rhetoric to turn the citizens of this city against a bargaining unit, so why would Merolla and Joe be fair, especially with Stasha and Cote doing the heavy lifting for them? Just keep alluding to “investigations” that aren’t happening.

Keep pissing on the heads of the firefighters and telling them it’s raining and you’re going to end up with a completely inflexible bargaining unit that makes no concession and argues every play for leeway and advantage. Some complain that its how the firefighters are now but if you really paid attention you’d have seen that in fact, they have been willing to make concessions. This wouldn’t be the first no raise contact they’ve agreed to recently. They’ve in fact taken temporary pay cuts to pay for the hiring of new personnel which cut into their overtime. That’s never acknowledged. It’s always “greedy greedy firemen.” Well, continue to bash, slander and take advantage of their good nature and it’s going to become a self fulfilling prophecy. It might already be too late.