Well hello all it only took me 3 days to figure out how to register for this forum. I guess I should have given the kid five bucks to figure it out for me, it would have been quicker. Well I have been reading through some of the posts and I seem to detect some ill feelings amonst us. Well I must be mistaken because I know for a fact that the people I work with day in and day out are a mature, reasonable, thoughtful, and caring group of indivduals that collectively make up what will be known as the greatest example of organized labor this country has ever seen. And I mean every word of that. Because I feel so strongly about bringing us all together to further our cause. I will henceforth assume the duties of Unity Czar. As my first decree I must ask of the people to cease all negative commentary and to make your points utilizing fact based argument and appropriate speech. With continual negative comment you only seek to further divide and alienate each other. I will leave with quote from a post I made on the NEMSA website when the voting was done. "the partisonship must cease. We all know that today SEIU 250 was removed from a position they felt too comfortable in for too long. With that we all should feel resolved. However the question of what lay ahead must not add to our anxiety of who will lead us into a new era of prolific conquest with regard to establishing ourselves as professionals among the ranks Nurses, Doctors, Police, Fire and so on. We must all think about the face of our new union and must strive to achieve those things that we all agree are important steps in cementing ourselves in a firm foundation of cooperation, trust, professionalism, and compassion. We must be cooperitive with whom we work, trust with whom we share responsibilty, professional with whom we serve and compassionate with all we come in contact with. "
There is unity amongst those that voted in IAEP. There have been made many inflammatory comments by the usual few at NEMSA. When many of us from this forum attempted to give rebuttal on the NEMSA message forum, they banned us from using it.
To bring you up to speed, Tim Bonifay felt it was in the best interest of NEMSA to allow everyone a glimpse into his sick world. He bestowed upon us his fantasies of attacking our friends with a machete, describing their sexual habits, and fantasizing about family on family homicide. There has been a feable response from Torren Colcord about this, which falls way short of what is appropriate. He is minimally guilty of assault. There should be restraining orders restricting him from proximity to those he threatened.
I proposed a forum called "Bridges", whose sole purpose would be to bring unity between the two parties. I have received emails from people that I will allow to remain anonymous, that previously supported NEMSA, but now realize that it is time to move on. They would like to be part of this group. There is a handful of people that are still hard at work protesting our vote, despite the fact that none of the representatives, either from the NLRB or NEMSA itself, detected anything wrong while the vote proceeded. They only "perceived" the problem after they found out that their "landslide" victory was, as it turns out, their loss. You will NEVER get them on board.
Let's move on without them. I am going to continue on with "Bridges". I would love help on this project from those that have been there to help me as we have battled the never-ending rhetoric from the remaining few die-hards at NEMSA.
We have a local to organize, a board to elect, and shop stewards to elect so that we can call ourselves IAEP stewards. That time is coming very soon. We should be hearing about a leadership conference in the near future.
May I make a suggestion. It would be much more helpful if you were the babysitter at large here. When those that refuse to act like big boys and girls come to this playground, you must put them in a time-out, or their crib, until they stop their disruptive irrational tantrums. Then the grown-ups won't be distracted from the tasks at hand.
Erin
-- Edited by Play with My Money at 20:31, 2004-09-14
-- Edited by Play with My Money at 20:41, 2004-09-14
Thank you for the update on the goings on here within the forum. I have been made aware of the post of which you speak and must say I agree with your assessment. Just as I have warned before, comments that are negative, mean spirited or down right threatening have no place on this or any other forum for that matter. Obviously some people allow there emotions to overcome them. It is however one thing to be filled with anger but to formulate those angry thoughts into a descriptive plan of destruction is entirely inappropriate and would dictate intervention by those closest to that individual to help them understand why their words are so dangerous not only to others but to themselves.
Ok Jonathan, I like the four wheelin trip idea, but what if also we do a trip to vegas and everybody drink a little too much trip? Then we really have to be friends afterwards! Pure bonding there!
I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I'll bet you sat in disbelief, in some way wishing, despite this being the co-founder of NEMSA, that this never got said.
Well ,it did. There is no taking it back. Think of all the things that we have worked on in our county. I'm a team player. I will not sit here and allow someone to make comments like that without strenuous opposition. Bill is my friend, has been for years, as well as yours. Hacking him up with a machete? I still want people from NEMSA, the good people, the ones that struggle for change, to be a part of what is going to happen. I will never embrace violent behavior as ugly as this, most certainly not from a person that at some point was trained on how to heal and ease human suffering.
He is not fit to be an EMT. He has no purpose nor place among those that are called EMT's. He is not fit to sit at the same table as you or I.
I know I am coming off perturbed, this I will not apologize for. I am not wrong for feeling the way I do. NEMSA owes our community a collected apology, they know it, we know it. They, however, will not do this. They know that an open apology might cause them to lose support with the field, considering they plan to appeal our win. So Torren devises this very carefully structured statement to distance himself from Bonifay while carefully dodging the cow patties on the ground beneath him.
So, instead of apologizing, people like Tracy Sardad and Medic_One, who can only insult under the cloak of anonymity, attack Bill with more lies and deceit.
Tracy Sardad would go on to post an email that cites patient care, when she is not even a field employee, with no knowledge of the care you and I give to our patients day in and day out. She questions the direction a paramedic would take, when in a life and death situation, when she has little to no knowledge of what it is like to save, and unfortunately, sometimes lose, a life.
Again, my invitation goes out to all of those that would like to participate in "Bridges". Jonathan. I could certainly use your help, if it actually gets off the ground. I know there has been much support that has come from the IAEP side. We need people from the NEMSA camp to embrace such ideas. Time is of the essence. NEMSA, however, knows we will start contract negotiations in about a year. It is ugly to see that they will thwart our attempts for a better workplace by resisting any and all attempts at unification for their own selfish agenda. They NEED to see failure so that they might have another crack at this in 5 years.
