When Chicago’s firefighters walked out: A vintage editorial
As part of the Tribune’s ongoing 175th anniversary celebration, the editorial board is reprinting some classic editorials, all very much of their era.
Here’s an editorial from Feb. 15, 1980, as the board reacted in shock to the news of a strike involving Chicago’s firefighters, locked in conflict with Mayor Jane Byrne.
A city betrayed
Despite the angry talk, the threats, and the strike votes, we really could not believe they would do it. These men were our civic heroes, the helmeted knights of the red fire engines. These were the paragons of courage children aspired to be when they grew up. These were the saviors of babies and old ladies, the kindly rescuers of stranded kittens.
How can they now behave like disgruntled hod carriers or militant autoworkers? How can they defy the law and betray the public trust? How can they go on strike?
Granted, Chicago’s fire fighters were sorely provoked. Their job is the most hazardous in public service, yet their pay is lower than that of many other public servants. They had asked for a contract, and Mayor Byrne had promised them one, however unwisely. Now they found themselves confronted by a stonewalling mayor.
But did they, and their threat-spouting leaders, consider the price they and their city will pay for this unconscionable action? Can they visualize the contorted face of a grief-stricken mother whose baby died because firemen refused to do their duty? How long before outraged voices cry, “Murderers!” How many days, or even hours, will it take for the firemen to squander the deep reservoir of public trust and
admiration accumulated in more than a century of exemplary service?
What Calvin Coolidge said of a Boston police strike in 1919 is still true: There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime. There is no moral justification for the present strike, nor can it be justified on legal or even practical grounds. It violates Illinois case law that bans strikes by public employees, and no conscientious man should have joined the force if he questioned this. It is pointless to demand a contract that permits strikes because a contract that condones illegal
action is invalid before the law. However tactless the mayor may have been, she is right in refusing to approve such a contract.
In practical terms, the strike is self-defeating however short it may prove to be.
To be successful, a strike by public employees must have public sympathy, as the fruitless CTA strike so clearly demonstrated. There can be no such sympathy for men who deliberately abandon their duty to protect life and property. A strike may even call into question some basic assumptions about the need for firemen.
In the nationwide firefighters’ strike in
Britain three years ago it was discovered that the additional property loss attributed to the strike was but a fraction of the cost of maintaining the firefighting service. Many Britons questioned whether the country really needed so many firemen. In the end, those British firemen straggled back to duty, demoralized, defeated, and much diminished in public esteem. In that case the union at least assigned men to stations so they could respond to fires and other emergencies in which life was threatened, something that has shamefully been neglected in Chicago.
It is possible, of course, the Chicago firemen could win their contract by this ugly action — which can more accurately be termed a desertion than a strike. They could succeed in getting more money and higher manning levels, but they will lose because to gain those modest improvements they are sacrificing what fire fighters have traditionally treasured above all else: the love and respect of the people they serve. It will take a long time and hard work to recover that loss.