Portland Firefighters & the Fight for a Two-Platoon System
PHOTO: Deering High School fire, Portland, 1921.
In January 1921, several union firefighters with the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Local 133 packed into a meeting of the Portland Common Council for a public hearing on their petition calling for the establishment a two-platoon system in the fire department. It was not a favorable political climate for any union in those days, but public opinion was especially hostile to public sector unions after the disastrous Boston Policemen’s strike in 1919 that was violently crushed by the Massachusetts National Guard, resulting in the shooting deaths of eight civilians. But Portland firefighters had been pushed to their limit with low pay and a continuous schedule that required them to be on duty 120 hours a week with just 48 hours off. They basically lived at the fire house and came home for some meals.
The Portland firemen organized the first IAFF local in the state in 1918 to better advocate for workplace safety and more free time to spend with their families. Their primary goal was for the city to adopt a “two platoon” system that would divide the fire company into two 84-hour shifts. Having only two shifts was still a lot of work, but at least it was more manageable. Most Americans worked an average of 60 hours in those days.
At the City Council meeting on Jan. 25, 1921, the fire fighters' attorney Arthur D Welch made the case for the two-platoon system as firemen sat in the audience. Welch estimated that it would cost about $69,000 a year to add 59 permanent positions to the department in order to adopt the system. That would mean there would 78 firemen on duty at all times. Under the proposal, the day-shift men would work continuously throughout the day. They would eat breakfast before reporting for duty and bring lunch and then go home after supper. The night men would also bring a meal and would stay up all night to ensure a speedy response to alarms. Several citizens testified and the firemen brought letters from 75 cities and towns that had adopted the two-platoon system. Welch argued that the extra funding needed to hire additional firefighters would be offset by lower insurance rates.
However, others were outraged that the fire fighters would ask for such a thing. “Why not make it three?” asked two Portland residents named Wood and Berry in a snarky letter to the editor. Heck, they argued, let’s add “a double set of pumpers and ladders, another chief, district chiefs” and then “double platoon the horses to give them a rest.” And why not “double-platoon the police and school janitors so they can clean the school day and night,” they asked. Maybe if they double platooned the public works department the streets might get repaired, they sarcastically suggested.
“In addition to all this, let us have a DOUBLE PLATOON in our tax bills — about three percent now, let is have it six,” they wrote.
The following month,Rep. J. T. Fagan of Portland presented state legislation to establish a two-platoon system in Portland. On February 20, the Portland legislative delegation held a well-attended public hearing on the proposal.
“I do not think it any wonder that the present system is referred to as a convict’s system,” said Welch at the hearing.
However, the proposal received a chilly reception from some state and city leaders. Rep. W.H. Murray argued that he didn't think it was right for the Legislature to “put it over on the people” if Portland voted down the ordinance. He suggested that it should go to a referendum. City Attorney Harry Wilbur and other city leaders and legislators agreed a referendum would be the proper course. The meeting got heated when former Council member William G. McDonald said he opposed the bill because he didn’t think it was appropriate that the firemen hire an attorney to represent them. Welch promptly shot to his feet and declared that they had every right to be represented at the hearing. The Common Council voted 14-13 in favor of the measure in April, but it failed to garner two-thirds support for passage. However, the previous month, Republican Rep. Ralph Own Brewster, helped pass the two-platoon system through the Legislature with an amendment that Portland voters would have to approve it first by referendum.
Both sides entered campaign mode. While the firemen tried to keep their union membership a secret due to the political climate, opponents appealed to anti-union sentiment by implying that the proposal came from a nefarious union from away. Conservative Portland Evening Express columnist F.D. Cummings argued that the “firemen are being misled” by a “paid spellbinder who could make some men think the moon was a cheese and that anyone could get a piece if he stood in the right place when it came up over the horizon.” He added that if the firemen were unhappy with their situation they could always quit and would be easily replaced.
“The only reason it got many votes in City Government is because Firemen have influence and power in politics,” wrote Cummings. “And I want to say right here and now that it is high time that it was established, by law if necessary, that any political activity on the part of a fireman or policeman should be cause for his immediate removal from the position which he holds. Taxes are high and municipal expenditures are large. To establish and maintain a two-platoon system would cost a large amount of money and eventually double the list of pensioned firemen once retired.”
Portland engineer George M. Beesley responded to Cummings in another column in October arguing that the city “cannot afford to be without the best protection obtainable” and the two-platoon would increase efficiency, allowing the department to better protect life and property. He noted that the two-platoon system ensured firemen would always be on duty compared to the present system where they went home for meals.
“Can you afford to take a chance on one life for want of service on a meal hour? Can you afford to be without the best protection for your family? Can you afford to have the fire station nearest your home unmanned nine hours a day? If not vote YES on the Two Platoon for Firemen December 5th,” wrote Beesley. Another letter writer, J.A. Degagne, asked if Cummings thought “24 hours continuous duty for firemen or anyone else is conducive to health, good Americanism, proper home relations.”
With election day just weeks away, Local 133 began canvassing doors around the city to garner support for the referendum. While the newspapers were generally against the referendum, columnist and longtime President of the Maine Federation of Women’s Clubs Grace A. Wingtook the time to get the firefighter’s perspective in the “Matter of Interest to Women” section of the paper. She wrote the column based on an interview with a “big good-looking man”in a fireman’s uniform.
“One man of our group has been there 33 years. He has a wife and some grown up children, but he scarcely knows them and that’s no joke,” the firefighter told Wing. “You take my take my own case. I have a wife and a little girl, but I hardly ever see that kid except on my day off. When I go to breakfast at 6 o’clock of course we don’t wake her, when I go to dinner at 11:30 she is in school; at night I do see her on the shifts when I get home, but only once in a while. I have one day in six to be off duty, which is about sixty days in the year, and two weeks vacation. A business man has his Sundays and holidays, so it breaks about even. It’s like a man only sees his family on a Sunday you might say. It is not just the right way to live, now is it?”
He argued that the two-platoon system would add about 42 cents on a thousand dollars in taxes, but insurance rates would drop by 80 cents and service would improve. The man dismissed concerns about the potential for strikes.
“We have an association, which we enjoy, like a club or something like that, but we are pledged not to strike or make trouble that would affect the efficiency of the department,” he said. “If we get what we ask for, when we go straight to the people, we shall be ever so glad, but if we don’t, we shall make the best of it, that’s all.”
Wing concluded that the fireman was “perhaps justified in thinking he has evidence on his side.”
The two-platoon system was also an issue in the mayoral election that year. Democratic mayoral candidate endorsed the proposal while his Republican opponent Carroll S. Chaplindoesn’t appear to have taken a position. Perhaps due to the political uncertainty of public support for the referendum, city Republican Party did not take a position on the two-platoon system and even made a public statement denying that they opposed it. But in the days leading up to the election, the Portland Real Estate Association amped up its opposition to the proposal. Association President William M. Pennell argued that firefighters have a better work-life balance than sailors, fishermen and “many traveling salesmen.” Besides, he said, firemen get a day off every six days and a pension, which other workers didn’t have. He then took aim at the union.
“We are not opposed to labor unions as a class, but we believe that firemen, and policemen, should not join any organization whereby they may be called from their legitimate duties thus endangering the public whose employees they are,” Pennell told a reporter. “We believe that a strike by the firemen might be attended with greater disaster than would be caused by a strike of policemen and the strike of policemen in Boston is not so far removed but all remember its results.”
Ad from the Portland Evening Express, Dec. 3, 1921
Evening Express columnist M. M. Gould went further on Dec. 1, blasting the IAFF as “contrary to the spirit and letter of the now generally accepted verdict of the great body of citizens of this Republic.”
“The police strike in Boston is not so far back that many citizens have forgotten the lamentable scenes there enacted,” wrote Gould.
Attorney William H. Looney, a former Republican Senator and State Representative who had been a strong supporter of private sector unions, went nuclear on IAFF Local 133 in Dec. 3 column, just two days before the election.
“The members of the fire department are the authors and abettors of this agitation, and their purpose is to secure the passage of a system which will enable them to work or rather give one-half of their time to the interests of the city,” wrote Looney, who once gave the keynote address at the Portland Central Labor Union. For one-half the service they unblushingly demand as much compensation as before. Whatever may be said for or against the members of the department, it certainly cannot be said with truth that modesty is one of their virtues.”
The same day, the Portland Real Estate Association ran an ad in local newspapers with the headline “Should Your Firemen Take Orders from the A.F. of L?” The ad listed the names of each of the officers in IAFF Local 133 to show they were part of the American Federation Labor, as they had kept their union a secret and had initially denied their membership in the IAFF. Once again, the group raised the specter of the Boston Policeman’s Strike to spread fear of a violent disorder if the two-platoon system passed.
“These things settle the question beyond a doubt,” the ad continued. “Opinions may differ as to labor unions in general, but there is virtually unanimity of opinion that firemen and policemen should not be allied with any outside labor organizations which might call them from their duties, and thereby endanger the lives and property of the citizens whom they are employed to protect. Remember Boston!”
On the day of the election on December 6, firefighters stood outside polling places to meet Portlanders as they went in to vote. But the vote wasn’t even close. 65 percent of Portland voters crushed the two-platoon referendum on a vote of 9,144 to 4,914, and elected Republican Carroll S. Chaplinmayor. The Portland Evening Express concluded that the expense was the major reason voters rejected the referendum. The paper also attributed the loss to a large number of Portland citizens, including other union members, being opposed to public sector unions.
“The methods employed to promote the two-platoon proposition were also resented by many voters of the City,” the Evening Express wrote. “They objected to paid servants of the City employing even their leisure time in seeking to influence voters upon any political question, flaunting signs upon public buildings, addressing public bodies, and even importuning voters on their way to the polls.”
The Express further argued that citizens feared a two-platoon system would have made IAFF Local 133 twice as politically powerful. Local 133 didn’t survive long after its massive defeat at the ballot box. It’s not clear why they disbanded the union, but the last public reference to the Local 133 is a 1922Maine State Federation of Labor Convention report. MSFL President Joseph O. Poulin reported that he had done his best to get them affiliated with the State Federation, but was not successful owing to their financial situation. But while the union dissolved, fire fighters periodically brought the two-platoon system proposal to Portland’s City Council throughout the 1920s and 30s. But it wouldn’t be until the Portland firefighters reformed their union as IAFF Local 740 in the 1940s that they finally win a second shift.