1979-1988

Members of Washington, DC Local 36 operate aerial ladders to form a giant steel arch for the return of 52 American hostage diplomats who were illegally seized at the U.S. Embassy in Iran and spent 444 days in captivity.

President Ronald Reagan establishes a Commission on Pension Policy to examine the nation’s retirement systems and to develop recommendations for changes that would address current problems, including employee pensions, Social Security, disability, public assistance and inflation indexing.

The IAFF considers Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, no friend of organized labor. While Sandra D. O’Conner served in the Arizona state Senate from 1969 to 1974, she backed a farm labor law that prohibited secondary boycotts and provided for a 10-day injunction in the case of strikes around the harvest time. That law effectively destroyed the United Farm Workers’ organizing campaign in Arizona. O’Conner also supported legislation that would have prevented unions in Arizona from contributing to political campaigns.

Senator John Glenn of Ohio and Representative Dale E. Kildee of Michigan re-introduce the $50,000 death benefit bill for federal fire fighters.

The IAFF receives written assurance that President Ronald Reagan does not plan to include federal, state and local government employees in the Social Security system.

The IAFF opposes contracting out as a strategy to eliminate federal fire fighters. The Commercial Industrial Type Activities (CITA) is the new name for the government agency program to contract out federal employee jobs to private contractors.

Congress passes a proposal, endorsed by delegates at the last two IAFF conventions, that will help to prevent members’ income from being pushed into higher tax brackets.

February 22, 1981

William H. Gardner, a member of Kansas City, MO Local 42 and the last surviving charter member of the IAFF, dies – almost on the 63rd anniversary of the first historic Convention in Washington, DC. He was 92.

The IAFF publishes an article on the techniques of fast water rescue.

The IAFF sponsors an anti-union busting workshop following the passage of Resolution 169 at the 1980 Convention calling for a national seminar to study and combat union-busting tactics. The 230 members attending the workshop were provided a list of 81 anti-union firms – an “admittedly incomplete list.”

Canadian fire fighters interested in taking upper-level college courses are permitted for the first time to enroll in American colleges associated with the IAFF’s Open Learning Fire Service Program. Now in its fifth year of operation, the program has record enrollments at the nine participating U.S. colleges and universities.

IAFF President John A. Gannon tells the Labor News Conference radio listening audience that tax savings from fire department cutbacks are a “false economy” as they are more than offset by higher insurance rates.

Based on a grant from the U.S. Fire Administration, the IAFF makes burn prevention materials available to members for local public education campaigns. These include a poster, brochure, wallet card and resource reference brochure.

IAFF members raise $3.3 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s annual Labor Day Telethon.

MDA and the IAFF →

Two Boston, Massachusetts, fire fighters die January 6 when a blazing building collapses.

The IAFF receives a $700,000 loan from the International Brotherhood of Painters and Kelly Press (the IAFF’s union printer) to pay off the bulk of its outstanding operating debt. IAFF Secretary-Treasurer Martin E. Pierce urges locals to pay back taxes to help relieve the IAFF’s indebtedness. Arrears per capita total $325,000.

The IAFF’s “1980 Annual Death and Injury Survey” shows an increasing number of deaths from carcinogens.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that minimum salary scales for fire fighters across the country rose 7 percent during 1980, while maximums rose slightly more than 8 percent. However, the cost of living during the same period rose 12.4 percent.

Members of Edwards Air Force Base Local F-53 are trained to prepare for any potential emergency when the Columbia space shuttle returns from its maiden voyage.

IAFF Secretary-Treasurer Martin E. Pierce sets forth the International’s position on the role of volunteer fire fighters: that there is a need for volunteers in sparsely settled rural communities for a fire service, which is largely free, based on total inability to pay for around-the-clock, on-the-job, professional expertise. The IAFF opposes men and women who work in urban or suburban settings who volunteer without essential training or experience, placing themselves and the public at risk. Professional fire fighters are essential in urban and suburban areas.

A U.S. Air Force heart specialist recommends that there be a mandatory retirement age of 55 for all fire fighters. The basis for his controversial thesis is that routine stress tests are not sophisticated enough to detect hidden heart problems in many fire fighters and other more complicated, dangerous and expensive tests, such as cardiac catheterization and radionuclide imaging, would be too impractical and costly to administer. Further, since three out of four individuals 55 years and older have significant coronary artery disease, all fire fighters should be retired from firefighting duties at age 55.

IAFF President Jack Gannon presides over a press conference called by the IAFF over concerns that an inadequately staffed and under-resourced fire department resulted in a larger loss of life and property in the tragic MGM Grand Hotel fire that killed 100 people and injured scores of others. The Las Vegas Fire Department – like many others across the country – fall considerably below NFPA staffing levels.

When the Florida Public Employee Relations Committee (PERC) levied a $12,500 fine on the President of Hollywood, FL Local 1375, Douglas Macready, members of the union walked into a city commissioners meeting with a steel barrel and emptied 100,000 pennies and 80,000 nickels as a first installment on the payment for the fine against the union for a four-day sickout. “Since the city has nickel-and-dimed us all these years, we’ve decided to pay you in kind,” said Macready.

Members of Marion, IN Local 676 are featured on the cover of the International Fire Fighter after they are arrested for attempting to peacefully negotiate a contract with the city.

The IAFF begins a new eight-page publication, the IAFF Quarterly Review, which will be mailed to the presidents and secretaries of all U.S. and Canadian affiliates and cover important court cases, arbitration awards and other legal and quasi-legal matters of potential interest to local union officers.

December 22, 1981

Two Racine, Wisconsin, fire fighters are killed when a roof collapses during a fire.

Because of President Ronald Reagan’s proposed fiscal 1982 budget, the U.S. Fire Administration budget is cut by $400,000.