It’s So Harold Schaitberger
Our Dear Leader (ODL)
We now know that Our Dear Leader’s plan to hide his conflicts of interest is to:
a) exempt himself by creating his own personal definition for them and to,
b) make them confidential while threatening to have the IAFF board come after anyone who dares to discuss them openly.
So much for fair and transparent operations.
We shouldn’t be surprised but his hubris is extraordinary, especially after the way he treated IAFF union brother Darren Bates.
Destroying a Union Brother
Our Dear Leader has changed the ethics rules to make his deals confidential and hidden from view while he denied union brother Darren Bates his confidentiality when he was falsely accused of a crime.
ODL Schaitberger gleefully “shopped” Darren Bates’ firing around to local press outlets, crowing about what he had done while denying Bates the basic rights we all deserve as IAFF members.
(The Darren Bates Story: http://www.turnoutblog.com/2014/05/07/ethics-the-darren-bates-story/)
ODL Schaitberger stripped Brother Bates of his dignity for no reason other than that he could.
Now, he proposes to use the IAFF ethics rules to attack anyone who dares to discuss his conflicted deal-making.
The Hyprocrite’s Rules
Once again we learn that the standard for ODL Schaitberger is different than for all other IAFF members.
He feels free to disclose confidential or private information about a brother IAFF member falsely accused of wrong-doing but wants his verified shenanigans to not only be shielded from view but anyone discussing them can be punished for doing so.
That is the textbook definition of a hypocrite.
This is what happens when a fundamentally corrupt person ascends to a position of power and is entirely unchecked.
It is the IAFF executive board and the affiliate leadership’s responsibility to provide limits on runaway power but that is obviously not happening.
Both groups have failed in their responsibility to control an officer whose ethical obligation is so absent that he feels comfortable in creating his own rules and punishing those who confront him.
His double standard weakens our union now and for decades to come.
And for that we have ourselves to blame.
We stood by and let him do it.