as a lifelong democrat and dare i say it..a liberal, i cannot in good faith support an organization like nemsa.here is why,nemsa is not afl-cio.afl-cio means working together with fire departments and police officers and hospital staff, and that is important.nemsa keeps saying that we keep loosing jobs to the fire department.well, you look around and you know that's not true, because firefighters have always been on our side when we needed them! think of the 9-11 attacks, that happened only because the bushies wanted them to happen( go see farenheit and learn the real and total truth!!!) Firefighters are real heroes and they have always supported private ems, just look around you! nemsa people are just a bunch of crybabys anyways.winning 49.5% is good enough in my book.that means that we won!!! i say that this is just bad carma from the bush/gore elction from 2000 bush only won because the courts said he did. had they actually counted all the votes gore would have won, and all these millions of iraqi civillians didn't have to die for our oil!!! So back at you! This time WE have the courts on our side!!!!! IAEP is the only union that has real connections(because they are afl-cio) to our working class brothers and sisters in latin america and our european friends in france, italy,germany and everywhere else,where the working class women and men share our oppression by global companies like amr/laidlaw.
what nemsa doesn't seem to understand is this: the struggle of the working man is the same every on this earth. by their very nature, any private company exploits and oppresses their workforce!!! amr is no different that a sweatshop in india or china!!! that is what they do ! make more and more illigally gained profits and their using your sweat, tears and your back to do this!!!
brothers and sisters,with the help of IAEP the AFL-CIO and our european,latin american and asian friends, we , as international workers, can defeat this so called " grass-roots " effort by a few misguided ems traitors to the international working class man who claim to know what you in ems want!!! IAEP KNOWS what you want!!! and IAEP has INTERNATIONAL power. IAEP has 3 full seats on the NAGE executive board. our working brothers and sisters at SEIU L250 are with us all the way in this struggle to fight amr and the multi-national companies.DO YOU really think that nemsa will be there when we demonstrate as IAEP for the struggle of workers in mexico and other exploited countrys??? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
If nemsa was a real international labor organization like IAEP, why haven't they organized workers in other countrys??? IAEP is AFL-CIO. they are part of a large family of international labor, your union dues will help pay for helping the struggeling working class men and women in europe,asia,latin america, mexico and the ukraine. but we must not forget that our struggle is global!!! Arafat, the elected (almost 99%) leader of the palestinian intafada( or uprising) supports organizations such as ours on principle alone, because AFL-CIO does not support the foreign policy of the untied states of amerikkka. with IAEP you can be assured that your union dues will be spent on the just causes of workers world wide!!! remember with our brothers and sisters at local250 only 70% of our dues went to afl-cio to support struggeling working men internationally! that is a small price to pay brothers and sisters!!!think about it!!!
so, in international unity with workers who are opressed everywhere, I salut you and hope if there is a revote,wich i think the courts will prevent from happening, you will vote internationally, vote IAEP!!!
Maybe I have a little different view of your post. The real heroes I see are those I work with, who stabilize the patient in their home and then work hard extricating them to their ambulance, and continuing their care in transport. We risk our lives in so many different ways that never get recognized. We are not recognized for the hazards of Code 3 driving, communicable exposures within the confines of the rig, IV sticks, and dangerous 5150's that again pose a threat in transport.
I am no different than the other folks we have been in communication with, both from the IAEP and NEMSA side, that routinely follow-up on patients that we had brought in earlier, just to see how they are doing or to help a grieving family. When was the last time you saw a media circus involving these situations. Some of you may not like what I am about to say, but I have to admit that one of the things that Torren, Kevin Tarbell, and I are in total agreement on is that our representation must be involved and reverse this lack of attention that we routinely receive. Our public image needs an about-face. It not only has to happen from inside each and every one of us, but at a more central level which can and should be facilitated by our workforce representation. The cities of Fremont, Alameda, Pinole-Hercules do not put a dime into the image of their firefighter employees. Their union does that, and does it very well both at a local and national level.
I realize I have opened myself to criticism from some when it comes to agreeing with a NEMSA point of view, but they do have some good suggestions, and this was one of them.
You are not opening yourself up for criticism for pointing out something they talked about that you agree with. But, Rod, did you observe or recognize this for the first time after Torren brought it up? Of course not. We've all noticed the lack of PR or acknowledgment from the media or wherever else. I support strategic campaigns to raise awareness of our occupation, however I do not support jumping up and down and yelling, "Look at me! Appreciate me! See my pain!"
