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Firefighter one of nation’s safest jobs
Jan. 23, 2013 By Steven Greenhut The nation’s astoundingly well-paid public firefighters insist that they receive their high salaries and pensions (averaging around $175,000 a year in total compensation in California, with age-50 retirements and schedules that allow them to sleep on the job and work only a few days every two weeks) because of the terrible dangers they face on the job. They do face occasional and serious dangers, but according to a new National Public Radio report, such dangers are well below those faced by most of America’s workers. The average death rate in 2011 was 3.5 per 100,000 workers for the average American worker. Fishermen had the most dangerous jobs with 121 deaths per 100,000, followed by loggers and pilots. Firefighters die at a rate of 2.5 per 100,000 workers, which is slightly above the rate for cashiers (1.6). Yet not many cashiers — or loggers or fishermen or taxi drivers, for that matter — receive “3 percent at 50″ retirement plans courtesy of taxpayers. Police officers died at the rate of 18.6 per 100,000, which is significantly below farmers and just above construction workers, although well above the national average. About half of the police deaths are because of car accidents. By the way, the government considers it an “on the job” death when a firefighter or cop dies from heart attacks, cancer and other common ailments. These are referred to as presumptions. It’s a presumptuous standard, but one that unlocks myriad benefits for surviving family members. Police and fire also argue for their millionaires’ pension — one would need several million dollars in the bank to receive a lifelong six-figure payout for employee and spouse — based on the idea that they die shortly after retirement. Union officials repeat that falsehood, but even the union-friendly California Public Employees’ Retirement System released a presentation showing that the longest-living category of public employee is a cop followed by a firefighter. They tend to live well into their ’80s which, if you think about it, is why there are those huge unfunded pension liabilities. All jobs have their dangers and stresses and I don’t wish to minimize those faced by public safety officials, but their unions promote an outsized sense of danger for disturbingly political reasons, just as their unions exploited the 9/11 tragedies for cheap political gain. I wish everyone a long and healthy life, but it would be nice if public-safety unions stopped overplaying the dangers they face in order to hit up the public for more cash. It’s time to stick to the facts.
Comments(81) |
May 20, 2013
Good luck!!
Wake up Dave, You will need more than “Luck”.
Quoting Dave …”sorry to burst your little bubble, but my pension isn’t going anywhere…”
Please check back in 5 years.
Hey Tough, you don’t scare us! We will be here now, and for a very long time. Still protecting and serving. For our so called unearned pay. Push away from the laptop Tough, Push away. Do something productive!
Davey, there is no luck involved, it is called math my friend, and you will be on the bitter end of the numbers.
Since you clearly appreciate the myriad dangers associated with our “astonishingly well-paid” career, is like to invite you to come train and work with us. We definitely could use someone as well-informed as yourself to show us how to better our offerings to the public for their tax dollars.
As well, you can enlighten us as to your presumption of how a firefighter’s death from cancer, or heart disease, is not relevant. Maybe you know a way to avoid those dangers better than we? For instance, how to not breathe the hydrogen cyanide in smoke from a burning house; or how not to develop heart disease from the body’s natural stress response to being awakened by an alarm; or, perhaps how not to suffer injuries when a roof or floor made of lightweight construction materials collapses while we try to rescue a trapped person from the second floor of a burning home?
On second thought, don’t come see how we operate, live, train and work. Clearly the aversion to danger and accuracy in opinion has kept you from harm thus far in your life. Let’s not risk changing that, so you can go on living a protected life. Don’t worry, you can say anything you want about fire fighters; should you ever need our services, we will risk our lives for you regardless of what you say. It’s our job, our profession, and our calling.
CA ain’t gonna improve at least in the near teem. Departures by business and residents is the only thing that has any hope of knocking some sense into the circus freaks in Sacramento
Jared Alexander….Unfortunately for you you about 30 years to late for what once was a noble “Calling”. Those days are gone as are the Honor and Respect that went with it. I do not know anyone anymore that would want to “come train” with you, or even visit a fire station filled with a bunch of “wana be heros” that live off the glory of those long retired.
Mr. Alexander: We are not questioning that firefighting sometimes is dangerous. Only that the dangers sometimes are exaggerated. And that the $175,000 average pay in California is excessive, as is the incredible pension package. In Orange County, when a handful of firefighter positions open up, they have to pack potential recruits into Anaheim stadium so strong is the desire for these jobs. In the private sector, that would mean the pay would go down considerably from the competition (excess supply drives down the price). But the government sector works on coercion, as organized by public-sector unions, so things work differently.
Yet there are limits. Governments at all levels have become so expensive they effectively now are broke. Pay and benefits inevitably will be cut. Pensions will be reduced. Many departments will become volunteer.
Jared Alexander, I went through fire fighting and damage control training in my stint with the USN. You have no knowledge or skills over what I recieved in the navy, nor have you been exposed to anymore danger at your job than anyone else that uses the freeway system day in and out, heck I slept next to a nuclear reactor for two years you whiner.
The brief training in shipboard firefighting you had as a sailor doesn’t have anything in common with the training firefighters receive, other than the fact that you might have seen flames.
Your comparisons truly are increasingly ridiculous, Donkey. The radiation exposure must have done something to your brain.
Hey, old skippy is back…..Hey, how is that lawsuit going skippy??? Like I said, you can run but you couldn’t hide. I am looking forward ot taking your deposition, maybe you can get your gal pal to be your attorney of record.
Volunteer fire fighters make sense only in rural areas where it is not practical to have a professional force. Imagine having volunteer fire fighters in a state that has 39 million residents! Your fire insurance premiums would go through the roof!
SeeSaw…Los Angeles County has a paid call fire program and it works great.
FACT: Public safety personnel don’t get paid for what they do, but for what they may have to do. Think about it.
SKdog, my training in the USN was/is superior to anything the civilian FF recieves. Just as Navy Seals are better trained than any of your wantabe swat posers or peace officers.
Donkey, you continue to show your ignorance
Shelby, I hope a true hero comes to your aid when your tie gets caught in your paper shredder!
Dave, I am correct in every phase and on every point.
And you think your shipboard firefighter class makes you something special. Thank you for another great chuckle.
As much or more than you have ever recieved. How many ways can you break the fire triangle Dave? Do you actually believe your own hype? Just because you learned how to use a come-along, gas-powered saw, a pair of bolt cutters, prybar, tie a couple of knots, or pump a hydralic ram does not make you more than a Boy Scout working at an Auto Body repair shop.
Face the truth! Your cabal is filled with a bunch of overpaid, pampered, whiners that have been stealing from the taxpayers for the last 30 years.
Donkey, Don’t waste you time with Dave and his ilk of over-paid, over-pensioned, and over-benefited firefighters.
Their days are numbered … the countdown clock has begun with end the of the reign of overcompensated Public Sector workers on the horizon.
Justifiably, it will most assuredly be accompanied by the reneging on a significant share of the promises already made.
LOL. Donkey, it is a fire tetrahedron you moron. Go back to school. Please don’t try to out wit those in the business. Your two weeks of training have given you just enough to make you THINK you have a clue. LOL. you are too funny.
It is very easy to outwit an unarmed person like you Dave. What is funny about all that feed at the RAGWUS trough is the way all the bureaucracies do all their little minds can do to create industry terms to define the non-functional jobs they inhabit.
So the FF RAGWUS adds another section to the fire triangle and wow, now we have a bigger word, the fire tetrahedron, and all of a sudden pay, perks, benefits, and pensions must rise, because we all know that drawing and saying tetrahedron is so much more difficult.
When the reckoning hits your little cabal, as it will because the truth is getting out and the money will dry up, those of us that have followed the stealing of the taxpayers money will be standing in line speaking the words “I told you so!”
Thanks for the advise TL, but I am trying to instill some honor and integrity in this person in the hope tha he may redeem his crooked way.
Donkey…..These “wana be hero” firefighters sit around the coffee table all day and pat each other on the back. They should be worried. If they were caught up on current events they would know their retirement checks and health benefits were no longer guaranteed. Ask the retired firefighters in San Bernardino or other bankrupt city. If you think cities and countys have a hard time paying the bills now, wait until the new accounting rules are enacted in June of 2014. Many arrogant firefighhters will learn how little suport they really have, and how the “Love” they took for granted has been replaced with “Disgust”.
“I find that jealousy often grows from the root of low self esteem”
Dave no one responding to you is jealous or has low self-esteem, we are informed and educated. The extent of your creative defense of the corrupt RAGWUS you live in stems from union talking points not original thought or reason.
Quoting Dave …”“I find that jealousy often grows from the root of low self esteem””
And what might I ask is the root of your insatiable greed ?
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My 2 cents….cops and firefighters are not/should not be misconstrued as a hero.period ! They are just doing the job they signed up for and are getting compensated for it. Our soldiers and vets are heros. I thinks its disrespectful to classify cops, firemen and women into the same class as a soldier, who has someone else sacrifice their lives for them, and willingly abide by a solemn oath to follow through with that. I also take my hat off to the volunteer fire fighters for doing what they do, but then again….do they do it to protect their own property because they live somewhere that doesnt have the means to have a local municipality manage and pay for that service ? I would do that too if I had a chance of my place burning down because the nearest firehouse with paid firefighters are hundreds of miles away. The worst culprits are those california fire fighters and cops whose retirement is near 100 percent of their active wage. They are almost single handedly breaking californias budget….greedy lazy bastards if you ask me !