STEVE AUSTIN

"Can't we just all get along together?"-Rodney King "Poet Laureate" of Los Angeles.

Somewhere back in the 1840's after Cincinnati established the first fully career fire department in America, volunteers and paid men began fighting. Before anyone tries to fix blame on either side, history tells us that the Cincinnati's officials opted for a paid department because the various volunteer companies were warring among themselves and couldn't be counted on for consistent fire protection.

One hundred sixty years later segments of the fire service are still fighting. Why? Firefighters who can't get along with one another because of their status as either career or volunteer. It is silly and it is time to call a truce.

I am fortunate to be able to move around the country and meet a lot of firefighters. I have many friends in both the career and volunteer service. I make it a point not to associate with the radical element in either camp that pits one side against the other. Radicals fail to recognize that the public views its firefighters with pride and doesn't really care whether they are paid on not. The American public expects a professional response to emergencies and they will be just as critical of a career department as they are of volunteers if they think their emergency service needs aren't being met.

My beef and the beef of many is the continuing war between career and volunteer personnel is hurting the entire fire service.

A prime example of the career-volunteer conflict has manifested itself in the Washington DC suburbs. Sadly, a few career people wish to reduce the number of volunteers in their department even if it means limiting the freedom of what their fellow career firefighters can do on their days off. At least one local union in a large combination department has decided that career firefighters from other jurisdictions shouldn't be able to volunteer in their department even though that is where they reside. They even went as far as to pass a resolution that allows charges to be brought against their own union brothers. What ever anyone does on their day off is their business. Many career firefighters have second jobs. Is the next step baring them from working in a non union shop on their days off?

Attacking a career firefighter because he or she volunteers on days off won't improve paid firefighter wages, benefits, working conditions or health and safety. It also puts elected officials who want to support the entire fire service in difficult positions when the combatants ask them to take sides. On the Hill in Washington this ugly situation has already bubbled to the surface. When politicians can't get a clear signal from an industry group they respond by doing nothing for the group as a whole. That reaction could damage the fledgling programs we have worked so hard to establish at the federal level.

Here are the facts as I see them. There are places in this nation that will never have a career fire department just as there are places that will never (and shouldn't be) volunteer. There are other communities that will transition into career departments when volunteers can no longer do the job. This is especially true in the case of suburban areas around our largest cities. In some of these places volunteers will remain strong. In others career people will take up the slack. History over the past fifty or so years indicates that there will be more career firefighters hired. Given these trends, volunteer departments won't replace career staffs. It is the other way around.

There will be more not less paid firefighters. They will need good salaries and working conditions. That is the challenge for labor organizations. Individual career fighters and labor organizations shouldn't waste precious time and resources fighting volunteers. Priorities must be redirected toward improving health and safety, salary and benefits for the rank and file.

Volunteers need to have a realty check too. In combination departments career firefighters assigned to volunteer stations must be afforded the same courtesies given to volunteer members. Career firefighters who view volunteers fairly should be afforded the respect they deserve as members of the fire service. Volunteer leaders need to isolate anti career sentiment. Judging a whole group by the actions of a few militants is wrong and not within the traditions of the American fire service.

This inane conflict between volunteer and career firefighters needs to end quickly before we squander away the incredible good will we enjoy from the public. Politicians, fire chiefs, volunteer association heads and labor leaders must show the way but ultimately it is up to us the uniformed members of the service to end to civil war.