When Only the Very Best Will Do
Anyone working, or trying to find work, during the recession of 2009 will not soon forget it.
Things were so bad that Paul Krugman, the well-known economist, termed it the beginning of the Second Great Depression.
Danielle Kurtzleben has written that median household wealth fell 35% in the US, from $106,591 to $68,839 between 2005 and 2011.
It was surely a time for everyone to tighten their belts.
Well, almost everyone.
So Expensive It Hertz
The hard-working IAFF executive board decamps to Miami each winter to do some business in the warm sunshine and to rest up after all that effort on our behalf.
For General President Schaitberger that means re-creating his luxury life on the road.
And that can be pretty expensive.
How expensive?
I don’t know about you, but when I rent a vehicle I get the cheapest one I can, especially if I don’t think I will be driving it much.
They all have a radio and air conditioning and anything I rent will probably be better than my current nine-year-old ride.
Not for the General President of the IAFF.
Right in the midst of the worst recession on record when IAFF members are struggling to make ends meet, he rents just about the most expensive vehicle possible and pays $3348 of member dues to do it.
To drive 123 miles.
That’s $27.00 a mile, in case you are wondering.
What Does It All Mean?
The IAFF is led by a man who has absolutely no ethical principles.
Even when he knows IAFF brothers and sisters are suffering he still spends dues money recklessly like a drunken sailor, squandering funds that should have been used to help locals in trouble.
But, he has help with that.
The rest of the board are as guilty as he is.
They have been bought off with their 50 pieces of silver and sit quietly by while the treasury is raided.
And, they have help, too.
Every major IAFF union leader save one, Virginia’s Michael Mohler, are sitting silently by as the IAFF is wrecked.
Mostly they fear Schaitberger but some also want their turn at the hog’s trough and don’t want to change the status quo.
Major local leaders and state and provincial officers could stop the slide in a second if they had the courage to do the right thing.
If Steve Cassidy, Frank Lima, Tom Ryan, Alvin White and a few others got together and decided to escrow their IAFF dues until Schaitberger and the board were under control, the battle would be over before it even started.
Talk about cutting off Harold Schaitberger’s allowance and suddenly he is all ears.
That’s right, less than ten people could change the course of the IAFF over a cup of coffee.
The question is why they don’t?
– See more at: http://www.turnoutblog.com/2015/09/06/iaff-and-labor-day-is-our-future-more-corruption/#sthash.b3JXAHa9.dpuf