Regular readers know that I’m generally a fan of the police and firefighters. But there is one aspect of both groups of which I am not a fan: Unions. As in other jobs where unions are involved, the practical outcome is that it becomes nearly impossible to fire anyone. And that is a problem because in any organization there are going to be people who deserve to be fired.

Today the LA Times has a story about just how hard it is to fire a firefighter in the city, even when they’re caught in behavior that would be a firing offense in any other job. And as a result almost no one is ever fired. The story points out that in 2021 not one firefighter was fired despite evidence of wrongdoing and possible criminal behavior. Here’s a case in point involving a firefighter caught soliciting a prostitute while on duty.

On an April day last year, an LAFD captain noticed that a department cellphone was missing at Metro Fire Communications, as the downtown dispatch center is known. The phone was one of the older flip models available as a backup to firefighters in emergencies — and someone had been taking them from time to time without logging them out. The next day, the captain saw that the missing phone had been returned and needed to be charged.

After charging it, he found a series of text messages in which Armando Gabaldon, a 15-year LAFD veteran, solicited sex from a prostitute at the Four Points by Sheraton near LAX, according to disciplinary records, which described the events as they unfolded…

The captain compared the times of the texts with images from a video camera filming the dispatch center parking lot. The camera captured Gabaldon driving out of the lot in his white pickup truck at 12:41 a.m., leaving his post without permission from his supervisor. He was seen in the video returning to the lot an hour to an hour and a half later.

In that case the firefighter confessed and claimed he was being treated for sex addiction. He was eventually suspended for six months but not fired. He also was never arrested or charged for the solicitation.

Another incident involved an LA firefighter who was caught by police driving drunk.

In May 2020, the wife of LAFD firefighter Brian Corntassel asked the Huntington Beach police to meet her near the couple’s home. She told the two officers who handled the call that she was moving out and that her husband had struck her on several occasions in the past. Theofficers spotted Corntassel driving up to the house at a high rate of speed, according to LAFD disciplinary records that detailed the department’s investigation. Corntassel, the records say, then parked his Ford Excursion, got out and yelled at the officers. The officers eventually confronted him, and he shoved one of them and resisted arrest. They subdued him with a neck hold that caused him to lose consciousness.

After his arrest, a blood test showed his alcohol level at 0.18 and 0.19. One officer noted in an interview with an LAFD investigator that the test was performed several hours after Corntassel arrived in the Excursion, meaning the firefighter probably had been even more intoxicated than the result indicated.

The Orange County DA charged Corntassel with five misdemeanors. He initially denied driving drunk but later pleaded guilty to “alcohol-related reckless driving” and also attacking a police officer. He was suspended for 26 days and last month was found dead in his home. The cause of death hasn’t been released.

Why does this system exist in which firefighters who commit crimes still are not fired? The LA Times, not a conservative paper, suggests the problem is the unions which have Democrats “wrapped around their finger.”

[Fire Commissioner Jimmie] Woods-Gray and other critics of the disciplinary system largely blame the influence that the Fire Department’s two unions have over the city’s elected officials and the department’s leadership. The critics say the unions use the clout that comes from their election endorsements and campaign contributions to thwart reforms.

Andrew Glazier, who advocated for fair treatment of women and nonwhite firefighters during eight years on the Fire Commission, said the unions have local politicians “wrapped around their finger.”

This isn’t a failure of the existing system. This is how it’s intended to operate. Unions collect dues which make their way into local politicians campaigns and that disinclines them from contradicting the unions, at least in public. The only way this will change is by weakening the unions but in union-friendly California it’s hard to imagine that happening.