NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW ENGLAND A, SSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS
Under our fire department working hours that would mean six men. We attempted to
be fair in the questions of maintenance, garaging, etc., and all other problems.
gave the advantages of having i t , and the disadvantages. We put it in an impartial way
before the town, meeting--which meant the people themselves..
The people voted against accepting an ambulance f.o,r nothing. It was the people
speaking, and that is why I wish to put the thought before you men.
CNAIRMAN WOOLLY.Y: I would like to explore this further, but we are going to
have to cover many things. Any of you who are interested in the development of ambulance
work can take a leaf from the .:bc,oks of the ambula~¢e:2seryices of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey. Both of them operate many services. The. que_~ion is, whoShall
the am~bulance? How shall it be paid for and .charged for? The money may come
from a variety of .sources. We could discuss this at great length.
You can get irif6rmation thro~ugh our ,office .of Fire Engineering, or yours truly,
your technical consultant. There is an organization known as the International Rescue
andl First Aid Association and its data is available to you.
Now we have a question which I think simply cannot be by-passed. In fact, a
number of the questions given us by the Panel have to do with this same prolblem. That
is the subject of manpower. I would like to have us discuss these questions--we have
two of them: One is Shorter working hours; One is, can a fireman perform outside part,
time duty and still do justice to his wor k as a fireman? Many of yo,u men don’t have
full-time work, :but full .and part-time. What .is your problem? Perhaps this will open
plenty of discussion--and let each speaker try to keep it short.
CHIEF FRANCIS SCULLY, Waterbury, ,C.o,nnecticut: During the Second W.orld
War our Fire Commissioner allowed .the men to work part-time. Of course, labor was
scarce theri, a_nd they were glad to getthe firemen. That is still in effect, providing they
send a communication to the Chief stating where they are working and what hours. In
my town--like probably a good many other towns--most of our boys are wo.rking parttime,
and it is a question, whether a man--after working six or seven hours on part,
time during the day--can do justice t.o his j,ob at night when he comes to work in the
department.
Another thought on that is tha.t a lot .of the work the firemen are asked to do on
part-time jobs probably won’t be done by a full-time man; work such as heavy trucking,
pulling and dragging. They probably get hurt and then naturally come to work, waiting
for the bell-t6 hit. ¯ -
Now that brings up another question--whether they should stop from working
part-time, and if they are getting enough money to stop? If they are getting enough
pay from the department they don’t have to have a part-time job. That is the problem
I would like to have solved by you gentlemen out there.
CHAIRMAN WOOLLEY: Thanks,-Chief Scully. We have a rather unique incident
in this cc,nnec~ion. This same problem is affecting Canada as well as this country. I
-will ask Fire ~Marshal Scott to tell us very quickly the story of the incident which happened
in Canada.
MR. W. J. SCOTT: I administer the state law in our Province. The firemen have
a maximum work week of Y6 hours, which gives them the guaranteed wages common
~n their community. The arguments have been that they don’t get fai~ treatment, unless
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