Word: firemen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some sectional bitterness is appearing too. Governors and mayors in the Northeast, an area of aging industries, feel discriminated against. Philadelphia, for example, is struggling to close a projected $137 million budget gap by laying off police and firemen. Finance Director Edward De Seve figures that an end to revenue sharing would cost the city an extra $50 million to $55 million; making up that sum might require a 17% increase in city real estate taxes, on top of a 20% jump already contemplated. De Seve insists that Carter and Congress should target budget cuts on what he derisively calls...
Some 250 striking firemen jammed into a courtroom in Kansas City last week, demanding that they be put in jail. City officials more than obliged, issuing contempt-of-court citations against 700 of the city's 850 firemen, and marching many of them off to the lockup in handcuffs. Angry firemen sabotaged their equipment, stuffing rags into water hoses and pouring sugar into the fuel tanks of their trucks. Most outrageous of all, three fire fighters were charged with setting grass fires while they were on strike. National Guardsmen were called out to protect the police and other substitutes...
...chaos was created by an emotional overreaction on both sides of what should have been a readily resolvable dispute. Its origins dated back to last December, when negotiations on a wage package dawdled and firemen protested for twelve days in a work slowdown, either by calling in sick or refusing to work overtime. The city reacted to the slowdown by firing 42 of the men who disobeyed orders to work beyond their scheduled hours...
...week's end Mayor Byrne and the firemen's union had not resolved their dispute. The jailing of the union's president, Frank Muscare, for failing to obey a back-to-work order outraged firemen, but most were eager to return to work and the union began to soften its demands. Meanwhile, Chicago was making do. The number of blazes was running slightly below average, and only three people had died from fires in the 17 days, no more than the normal rate. Said one striking fireman of the city's fortunate residents: "Mayor Daley must...
...earth, the next it was an amiable litter of vacancy signs. One moment it was the riveting center of the media's eldritch universe; the next it was just another out-of-the-way resort more or less waiting for next summer's convention of volunteer firemen...