[url]http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/homefront.html[/url]

Firefighters Arrested Protesting Removal From Ground Zero

New York City firefighters attempted to storm the ruins of the World Trade Center today in protest of a plan to control the number of personnel searching for bodies there. Twelve people were arrested after police stopped the firefighters from marching onto the site.

The firefighters say Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is breaking a promise to do everything possible to recover the remains of their loved ones, and is instead working to clear the site of debris.

Michael Carter of the Uniformed Firefighter's Association told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America that he feared "for lack of a better term, this will become a scoop and dump operation."

In the days just following the attacks, up to 150 firefighters had worked at the site daily, but the mayor said earlier this week he would reduce the number to 24.

Giuliani told Good Morning America he was taking the action because a group of experts had "very, very serious safety concerns about the way the job was being operated."

Experts were worried that the people were not wearing masks or helmets, and the effort was proceeding haphazardly, he said. "They told us we were risking people dying and being killed in the way the operation was proceeding."

Workers still there consider their work at Ground Zero a sacred duty. "We want to dig our members out with respect, just like we went in there to get all the civilians out," one firefighter told ABCNEWS.

"There are 250-plus firefighters there; 4,000 civilians still there. We have to treat it in a dignified manner," said Carter.


What the hell is going on now about two months ago the people would have been going crazy about this now what people don't care?

This is just a wake up call to all the union haters on the board. See its like this; The city doesnt want to pay 125 fire fighters overtime to help with the clean up but does want the job done by "experts" that it has hired off the street.
So when does all the union bashing start again? The city wants to collect on the fed grants to cover the cost but doesnt want to pay it to the firefighters.

NYC hired "scabs"?

I watched Guiliani's press conferance about this yesterday and he is right in his decision. He explained that daily there are personnel just standing around with nothing to do. The important point is safety and he explained that the firefighters are running into the middle and diggin in the rubble without alerting the bulldozer and crane operators and sooner or later someone is going to get killed because these operators cannot see them in the rubble. That was along the lines. Plus that was completely ridiculous that the firefighters were punching the police and flipping over the barricades. The police lost many brothers as well. Guiliani is a tough. He does do the right thing and they will better understand his point in the long term. It is just still very emotional down there.

If it's only a matter of overtime that's being used as the reason to do a 'scoop and dump' on the bodies of our glorious dead, then why not use the enormous charitable contributions that have been given to aid the families of those dead, to pay for a dignified and gracious search through the rubble?

If [u]my[/u] [u]child[/u] was still unidentified and unrecovered at Ground Zero, I know I would not be able to 'get on with my life', until and unless I knew that [b]every single reasonable method for recovery had been exhausted![/b]

Rudy, we thought you understood this before, we can only hope that you'll understand this again!

BTW, no one, meaning no one, should run up a bill, or charge excessively, for anything having to do with this tragedy!

You hear that 'personal injury lawyers'? Hmmmmm?

Eric The(AndIMean'NoOne')Hun[>]:)]

Yeah...  Fuck the firemen.   They don't deserve anything.  The families don't deserve remains to bury.  All that $$ spent in salaries could interfere with welfare payments headed toward Harlem.

All that matters is that the gold was recovered safely !

Being on the other side of the continent, I only know what I read, but I don't get what the firemen have to contribute to the recovery effort.  It is my understanding that the debris is barged to a former dump where it is separated in to large chunks of building and tiny bits of whatever.  Then a bunch of people sift through the tiny bits to see if they can find any remains.  Seems to me, that the firemen could contribute alot more out at the sifting area than at the scooping area.

Keep in mind that there are less than 1 million pounds of people mixed up with 200 million tons of debris.  In other words, at most, 2.5 ppm of the debris is human remains.

break the city I doubt it,,the firemen were wrong for getting physical,,no excuse,and I've lost a relative that was a fireman,,my dad is retired FDNY and we've lost many friends. But I do think that FDNY should be actively involved.

Don't forget that these firefighters go down there AFTER a full shift of work, stay there for a long time, and keep repeating that cycle.  It's called burnout.  They could get too exhausted to do their job properly (fighting fires, rescuing people still alive, serving the rest of NYC, etc.), and thus get someone else hurt or killed.

I understand the emotional attachment to staying down there, but not at the expense of their own health/effectiveness.

Yah!, what a coincidence, they got the gold, and now the hell with dead.

250 firefighters, that don't make sense.

And as far as union, do you think the work is being done by transients. I'll bet the brotherhood is doing the removal of the debris.

Those track hoe operators are probably pulling down $50 an hour straght time. You all figure the OT/DT.

Waterdog

Its time for the guys to get back to their regular work. It's not a search and rescue any longer. With such large personnel losses, the FDNY needs these guys back on the job.  Every one of them at ground zero means overtime for someone else to man the fire stations. If the firemen are so concerned, let them help at ground zero on their own time, off the clock.