I recently met a couple of guys from Wales here visiting friends. As we shared a pint, or two, the conversation turned to firefighting.
Knowing that firefighters in England and Wales were striking over pensions and higher retirement ages, I mentioned that that was something you didn’t see in the United States. “Red flu” notwithstanding, striking is typically prohibited by the firefighters’ contract, state law or both.
This is because fire and police are seen as essential services for public safety and wellbeing. That was the argument President Reagan made in 1981 when he fired striking air traffic controllers.
It wasn’t until after I left my new Welsh friends that I saw this argument from a different point of view.
Enter the story of a small, financially strapped volunteer fire department, a 1981 aerial unit and a bank holding the note on that aerial.
The West Newton Volunteer Fire Company is about 30 miles outside Pittsburgh. The department borrowed $55,000 from Commercial Bank & Trust of PA to buy the 1981 aerial.
The fire company defaulted on its loan; the bank repossessed the aerial in August and sold it at auction. But the truck, in disrepair due to lack of funds, didn’t fetch enough at auction to cover the balance of the loan.
The language of the loan agreement holds the fire company liable for the full amount of the loan. And the bank has taken it to court to recoup that money and any legal fees that may come from doing so.
Yes, the fire company probably could have handled this situation better so that it didn’t come to this. And yes, the bank is well within its rights to go after the additional money — but just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do it.
And that’s where my conversation with the fellows from Wales comes into play. Isn’t it reasonable to apply the same logic that prohibits firefighters from striking to something like apparatus repossession?
I think it is very reasonable to claim that a piece of apparatus is vital to public wellbeing and that a bank should have no more right to pluck one from service than should a union be able to pull its members from service.
There will probably never be laws that regulate apparatus repossession the way they regulate striking emergency workers. More importantly, if banks put the needs of their communities before those of their shareholders, there would be no need for such laws.
