[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 138 (Thursday, September 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


OUTRAGEOUS THAT LONG ISLAND'S VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS MUST TAKE VACATION 
                TIME FOR FIGHTING THEIR WORST EVER FIRE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, many of us in this Nation for many years 
have heard about the values of volunteerism. Our own President of the 
United States came up with a program where he thought we ought to pay 
volunteers in a program called national service. Tonight I want to 
address the floor for the purposes of talking about some tremendous 
individuals who work for the Federal Government. They are the postal 
workers of this Nation, the men and women who deliver our mail and the 
people like in my own village of Quogue, Long Island, where we go down 
to the mail and the employees in the post office are our friends there. 
They are our neighbors. They donate time to their communities, and a 
large number of these postal workers on Long Island also happen to be 
volunteers in the local fire company, volunteer firefighters.
  Last evening I addressed this floor and talked about the recent fire 
on Long Island in which over 5,000 volunteer firefighters made a 
tremendous contribution. They saved our property, they saved our 
communities. At threat during that fire could very well have been the 
local post office in Eastport, the local post office in Speonk, the 
local post office in West Hampton, Long Island, NY. All of these 
facilities, had they burned, would have cost the taxpayers many, many 
dollars to replace these fine postal facilities.
  I am forced to come to the floor this evening because of an 
outrageous incident that I have learned involving the U.S. Postal 
Service. The postal employees who are our friends, many of our 
relatives, our neighbors, on Long Island who donated their time to 
fight the worst fire in Long Island history are now being told by their 
supervisors at the Postal Service in Washington that they are going to 
have to take vacation time to cover their absence from work to fight 
the worst fire in Long Island history. Mr. Speaker, I find that 
outrageous, I find that the worst example in government of bureaucratic 
mumbo-jumbo gobbledegook that serves no reasonable purpose. We have 
small employers on Long Island, delis, Main Street merchants, who can 
ill afford the loss of an employee for a full week, and yet these 
smallest of businesses are paying their employees who had to leave the 
business to go fight the fire.

                              {time}  1915

  These volunteer firefighters are the best example of volunteerism, of 
courage, of bravery, and I find it outrageous that the United States 
Postal Service, the supervisors in Washington, have deemed them not 
worthy of being paid while they fought to save our communities.
  Mr. Speaker, it is outrageous. I attempted to reach the Postmaster 
General of the United States, but I was told he was in Hawaii, and he 
has been there for about a week, and he is jetting home to Washington 
as we speak. I am hopeful that we can convince the Postmaster General 
and the hierarchy of the United States Postal Service that when men and 
women give up their time, thousands of hours to train themselves to 
stay up in the latest techniques in fighting fires, that they ought to 
be paid when the community is at risk, such as our communities on Long 
Island were at risk. I find it outrageous, as I have said repeatedly, 
that the United States Postal Service in Washington does not deem the 
volunteerism of its own postal workers in this time of need as worthy 
of reimbursement for their time away from the post office.
  Mr. Speaker, I encourage the United States Postal Service to rethink 
its position, to pay the employees of the Postal Service who gave of 
their time to save our communities during the fire, and I ask them, 
again, to reconsider their position.

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