Atlanta Firefighters Protest Police-Only Raise Proposal – Firehouse.com News
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Read this article, in its entirety, and let me know if it sounds familiar.
Atlanta Firefighters Protest Police-Only Raise Proposal – Firehouse.com News:
Atlanta’s firefighters are protesting Mayor Shirley Franklin’s decision to give police a raise but not them.Franklin hopes to reduce attrition in the Atlanta Police Department by boosting pay by 3.5 percent, beginning in July. The mayor wants to give police officers $3.8 million in surplus funds while offering no raises to other city employees, including firefighters.
So far this year, Atlanta has hired 68 officers and has lost 64, leaving the 1,641-member Police Department with 145 vacancies.
Firefighters, as they have done in prior years when Franklin did not treat them equally, descended on City Hall on Monday to demand equal pay.
Capt. Joe Hussey was among about two dozen firefighters who attended the council meeting seeking “parity” with police. He promised that he and his colleagues would take their protest to the streets.
“No matter what we do,” Hussey said, “we can’t get anything. The T-shirt says it all.” Like the others, he wore a red T-shirt printed for the occasion with the words. “Atlanta values firefighters 0%.”(Read More)
It seems to me as though the Firefighters are being penalized for staying on the job. This can have detrimental effects on the morale, as even the article points out. It is amazing though that out of probably at least 500+ firefighters, only two dozen firefighters were at there council meeting.
