Member Spotlight: Welcker Taylor (IAFF)

Member Spotlight is a recurring blog post series intended to highlight and connect the dots between the programs and priorities of the NC State AFL-CIO and the leaders and activist members of our affiliates who make it all possible.

I’m Welcker Taylor, and I’m a captain at the Asheville Fire Department and President of Local 332 of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF). I’ve been a career firefighter for 18 years, and I was a volunteer for seven years before that. I love this job because it's all about showing up for people when they need us the most, bringing in a bit of calm and compassion and technical knowledge to help solve people's emergencies. The fact that we get to pop into someone's life when they're at their most vulnerable and help them without asking for a bill at the end of it is a great thing. That's how I got into the union: I saw all these great firefighters whose natural inclination is not to try to sell themselves to a government, and convince them that they need more money or better benefits or safer working conditions. But they need all those things. It’s an issue across public service: we pretend that if you want to have a job that's for the public good, you have to sacrifice making a decent wage. 

The way the new Asheville ordinance came about was that we had thirteen new firefighters who were being shorted $1,500 each, so I reached out to them and they filed a grievance, but the city manager's office told me I wasn’t allowed to come to their meeting. The city had basically reinterpreted the existing ordinance to mean that union representation was not allowed. To make sure the process was followed fairly, we went to the City Council, and they voted to solidify the ordinance language to allow me to attend the meetings. It’s a huge win! The policy isn’t perfect – I'm not able to speak on their behalf, for example. But in terms of a place like North Carolina that doesn't allow collective bargaining, I think it's really awesome that Asheville can recognize the need for this policy. Even within the confines of the regressive ban on bargaining, we can do something that's progressive and acknowledge that labor unions are important, and they are not a hindrance to us doing business, that they are a benefit to us doing business.

I want people to know that unions are a way of showing workers respect. We might not be paid what we should be paid, but you can at least value us in ways that don't cost any money. And one of those ways is allowing us to have union representation during these grievance procedures, acknowledging our union is important and that we deserve a seat at the table when decisions are being made.