Thank you, Andrew for keeping things objective, and shedding some light on some things I hadn't considered.

I hope you don't mind, I linked this over at www.rescuing-providence.blogspot.com

Andrew (and Justin, Monique, etc),

I appreciate the level-headedness and honesty being shown on this blog regarding this issue even though I realize that we differ in our opinions on the larger labor issues. As I wrote earlier, it is refreshing.

I need your help, however. Someone (and I'm convinced it is George Elbow) is posting anti-FF and anti Paul Doughty rhetoric on ProJo.com under the name "SelflessTKenney".

I call him out right here and ask you to attempt to stop this cowardly attack.

Good post Andrew.

I am glad that the Obama administration has chosen to respect picket lines. It signals a change in policy towards labor which has favored the weathly and not the worker for so many years. Finally Washington is standing up for workers. That is long over due.
This action is not a sign of weakness as some has suggested but rather it demonstrates the new administration's principle. It's almost as significant as Reagan's firing of air traffic controllers,but in the opposite direction of course. It sends a signal to management private and public that the days of fat executive pay and thin or non existent worker benefits are almost over.
It is sad but not totally unexpected to see the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001 are so quickly forgotten when issuses of compensation for public safety workers are on the table. These visiting Mayors need to be reminded that the primary function of their governments ought to be the safety of its citizens. Mayors ought to be brought up to speed on the need to staff fire and police for their day to day mission and also to prepare for catastrophes. Minimum manning for firefighters is the paramount issue here. This is the issue which has brought the firefighters to the picket lines. The public should be grateful to both the firefighters and the Obama Administration for making their safety a priority.

I think this was a plan by Cicilline. I think it was intentional to draw support to himself. I don't think he expected the Obama Administration to back out. At that point he had to demonize the Firefighters. The Projo jumped on board as usual. The sad part is the union has offered many concessions to help the city but that does not get any hype. Also the other Mayors became victims of his plan and lost out on getting to meet the new administration. He would have saved money for the taxpayers along time ago. If in the beginning he had asked for some small concessions. He most likely would have gotten them.

"a change in policy towards labor which has favored the weathly and not the worker for so many years. Finally Washington is standing up for workers."

Would that be the "wealthy" taxpayers of Elmwood, South Providence, Olnyville and Washington Heights? Yeah, those homeowners and tenants (who socialists don't think pay property taxes) have really been sticking it to the firefighters for years.

Andrew - Here's why the Journal used "intimidating". The FF protest is not "intimidating" to you or I. However, if you are a Democratic office holder, it is intimidating in an electoral sense. Organized labor is perceived as being able to add an additional level of difficulty to a campaign, something few, if any, candidates want to deal with. The "intimidation" works this way, then: FF - support us, and we will not hinder, and maybe even help, your re-election. Defy us, and we will make you pay at the polls.

"Finally Washington is standing up for workers."

Apparently, some "workers" are more equal than others. Unions are not the same as workers. Workers are the people who pay taxes. They involuntarily support the largess that the unions coerce politicians into giving them. How about the convention center, hotel, tourism, and restaurant workers who rely on the expenditures of people who attend these events? How about the private sector workers drowning in taxes to support unsustainable public sector salaries, benefits, and pensions?

The last thing the firefighters saga has to do with is safety, so give that canard a rest. It has to do with them wanting to maintain the status quo, because it rewards them handsomely at the public's expense.

I saw one of their signs which refers to themselves as "second class citizens." If only they could see how foolish and badly that comes off when a regular person who is actually struggling to make ends meet see them. Maybe they really don't know how good they have it.

Will, define a "regular person."

Therin lies the problem. Who gets what, who earns more, who deserves better...it will never end.

There is no private sector for public safety. Our pay and benefits are in line with electritians, plumbers, carpenters and nurses.

We do a little better than some, not as well as others.

Its just the way it is. We have a difficult enough time maintaining middle class wages and benefits. Times are tough right now, that is understood. When times were excellent, such as the economic boom in the ninties nobody cared that public saftey officers were on the bottom of the middle class. We didn't care either, that's just the way it is.

Maintaining the middle in an up and down world is all it is.

Neither group looked the least intimidating.Just some healthy 1st amendment exercise.The 1st amendment was primarily about political speech to begin with.
Phil-I was a member of a Federal emplyees union when the controllers were fired.I didn't know any of my fellow union members who supported them.We were in public safety jobs also and the notion of striking was out of the question.We had grievances like the refusal of the Justice Dept. to spring for body armor for many years.And the refusal to provide TB testing and hepatitis shots.It took an agent's death to start that ball rolling.
The point is we worked within the rules we were hired under.

Something needs to be done to give our national Democrats some backbone because this "labor, right or wrong" position is only going to alienate the real progressive Democrats - our nation's mayors, who are innovating at the local level every day without much help from the national party. Hey, Cicilline is head of the Democratic Mayors, who's got his back, Joe Biden?

I don't fault the firefighters for protesting, nor do I fault Cicilline for crossing the lines.
I do fault Cicilline for blowing this all out of proportion. He took what would've been just a local protest and tried to go Chicago '68 on it.
If not for the mayor's misapplied machismo, much of this embarassment could've been avoided.

George Elbow, where are you?

Who cares?