When US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed in the middle of the Hudson River last week, union apologists quickly claimed that the passengers’ harrowing rescue was a result of union procedures. I wonder what they’d say about this troubling story from the Boston Herald?

A bitter feud between Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the firefighters’ union blocked swift action to fill critical maintenance jobs until doomed Ladder 26 barreled into a building killing a Boston jake, both sides acknowledge.

Local 718 president Ed Kelly called the mayor’s move to fill slots open since 2007 a smokescreen for months of inaction ended by Lt. Kevin Kelley’s death.

Why wasn’t the firefighters’ equipment properly maintained? Instead hiring independent mechanics, city union bosses were more concerned with shoving workers into Big Labor’s forced dues-paying ranks (emphasis mine):

Menino yesterday ordered Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser to fill long-vacant mechanic positions nearly eight months after Fraser publicly raised concerns about inadequate staffing at a City Council hearing.

“I don’t think we’re adequately prepared to maintain our apparatus fleet the way we should,” Fraser told councilors at a May budget hearing.

Asked why it took so long to authorize Fraser to hire outside of the firefighters’ union, Menino said union rules blocked him but now he was taking bold action to assure firefighter safety.

“With a union workforce, you have to negotiate any changes,” Menino said. “I see an emergency and I’m going to do something about it.”

Menino’s action could spur a union grievance. The new mechanics will belong to a city union but not Local 718.

Kelly supports hiring mechanics but insists anyone responsible for firefighter safety belong to Local 718.

So the union boss put the expansion of his forced dues revenue stream before the safety of the public — and even the firefighters he claims to "represent." Just another example why forcing our nation’s public safety officials into union’s compulsory unionism ranks is a bad idea.