Firefighters Versus the Media

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Firefighters Versus the Media
By Cliff Kincaid | September 28, 2004
. . . the president of the firefighters union
engineered an endorsement of John Kerry for president
without asking his members about it.

One of the biggest stories of the presidential
campaign is being ignored by the major media. It's
how the president of the firefighters union engineered
an endorsement of John Kerry for president without
asking his members about it. It turns out most of the
members of the union are Republicans who support Bush.

Harold Schaitberger, the president of the
International Association of Fire Fighters, the IAFF,
has received tons of publicity and has been shown
repeatedly with Kerry at campaign events. These
appearances convey the impression that the
firefighters who performed heroically on 9/11 have
abandoned Bush. But it's Schaitberger who abandoned
his members.

During the Republican convention, the union
representing New York City's 8,600 firefighters
endorsed Bush. But stories about this development
tried to diminish the significance of the endorsement
by noting that the international union, the IAFF, had
endorsed Kerry. The stories failed to explain, as we
did in a recent Media Monitor, that Schaitberger made
this decision without polling his members. Instead, a
few members were asked about the characteristics they
wanted in a president. On that basis, Scahitberger
decided to endorse Kerry. Schaitberger admitted to
MSNBC's Chris Matthews that there are more Republicans
than Democrats in his union.

"Thank you so very much for your work on exposing
these facts." That's how a professional firefighter
and member of the IAFF local 2876 of South Kitsap Fire
District 7 in Washington state responded to our Media
Monitor on this matter. He told us, "I am so sick and
tired of union 'leaders' talking for us, so much so
that I don't pay into the PAC [political action
committee] fund anymore because it does not represent
my views or the majority of those of my co-workers
either. No one in our department, to my knowledge,
received or heard of a poll regarding who we
supported. I am a proud firefighter for Bush as are,
I believe by straw poll, a great many of my fellow
firefighters, including our VP. "

Using the same old ploy, a Newsday story about the
firefighters' endorsement of Bush claimed that, "the
International Association of Fire Fighters unanimously
endorsed Kerry and its members have since often
campaigned with him." But that once again ignores the
fact that the endorsement was delivered without
polling members of the union. Not surprisingly, the
New York Times compounded the error. It declared, "A
year ago, the nation's main firefighters' union, the
260,000-member International Association of
Firefighters, became the first large union to endorse
Mr. Kerry." That falsely implied that these 260,000
members had voted to endorse Kerry.

The Firefighters for Bush website continues to ask
firefighters whether any of them were ever consulted
by Schaitberger about the Kerry endorsement. One
posted the following answer: "I don't think anyone but
Schaitberger's opinion counts at all. The IAFF is
stealing our dues to support Kerry." Another said,
"It's disgusting a portion of our dues go toward
campaigning against President Bush." This is the
story that the media should tell.