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Guy who was charged with throwing man to the ground outside a Faneuil Hall bar is a Boston firefighter
By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2022 - 4:54pm
WFXT reports that Robert Buckley, 43, of Plymouth, arraigned Monday on charges he slammed a 68-year-old man to the ground outside J.J. Donovan's early Sunday, is a Boston firefighter who has been put on administrative leave pending the outcome of his case.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Firefighters
can live outside of Boston?
If they have a contract like police
They can move out after 10 years.
Anyone want to guess if it's
Anyone want to guess if it's paid leave?!? Just kidding, we all know fire & police get that regardless of the type or number of felonies they're charged with. So happy to be a Boston taxpayer...
LMK
When you’re paying 4% on top of the base 5%.
Huh?
Huh?
“So happy to be a Boston taxpayer”
Base income tax in MA is 5% + Millionaires supplemental tax of 4%. If you think it sucks being a boston taxpayer at 5%, it stings even more at 9%.
Won't someone think of the poor millionaires!
if only they had someone who could advocate for them and look out for their interests, maybe they wouldn't have to pay higher tax that only applies to the portion of their income that they take in excess of a million dollars.
States do monitor them
And will even reach out if they think that person is thinking of leaving the state.
Oh, good
I would hate to think that our poor beleaguered millionaires weren't getting outsized attention from our government. God knows what they'd do if there weren't people out there to push for their interests at all possible times!
There’s confusion here
People are confusing the marginal rate with the net rate you actually pay. Basically nobody is going to pay 9% state tax.
Lees than $1M in income: 5% tax
1.25M in income: 5.8% tax
1.5M in income: 6.33% tax
2.0M in income: 7% tax
Etc.
This is hardly confiscatory
Basically nobody?
Keep going, Bob. Anyone making over $4M is paying 8%. $20M is 8.8%. Agreed, almost no one is paying 9%, but don’t pretend like high earners are not getting hit with significantly higher tax bills.
You want to punish people who haven't been convicted?
Giving unpaid leave means assuming he's guilty. Until he's either been to trial or made a plea bargain, he's legally assumed innocent. Occasionally giving paid leave to someone who's guilty is the price we pay for ensuring that someone who'd been falsely arrested isn't put on unpaid leave, which is a much worse mistake to make.
You aren’t wrong, but…
You aren’t wrong, but at the same time there are plenty of valid reasons to fire an employee that don’t require conviction in a court of law. Let’s say you see your employee spit at a customer, but the customer declines to press charges. That’s still reasonable grounds for firing.
Criminal conviction requires a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Termination of employment is a much lower bar. The fire department could, in theory, conduct its own investigation and make an employment decision completely independently of the court system, as long as employment law and the process laid out in the firefighters’ contract are followed.
"Let’s say you see your employee spit at a customer"
Okay, let's run with your game.
Situation #1: A boss or direct supervisor of an employee is a first hand witness to an offense that justifies firing.
Situation #2: A person is arrested in a country with a legal system where there is a presumption of innocence in a situation on their personal time where nobody from their workplace was a witness.
In situation #1 the employee is fired. End of game.
In situation #2 if we follow the thread of your proposition it means that the BFD would have to "conduct its own investigation" in parallel with the police and district attorney so that they could fire this employee even if the charges ended up on the "not guilty" side.
Yeah, that makes sense and I'm sure that the cost of having those independent investigators working full time for BFD would be a huge savings in comparison to the paid leave that ends up on the books while the legal system does what it is supposed to do.
Remind me not to hire you as my accountant.
So you walk into the chief’s
So you walk into the chief’s office and say, “hey, my store is next to the station; firefighter Jones has been coming in about twice a week, raising a ruckus, challenging customers to fights, and spitting on the produce.”
Should the chief’s response be, “I’ll investigate?” Or should it be “Unless he’s charged, tried, and convicted, I’m not going to do anything”
n
n
Non-sequitor
The comparison was between an offense witnessed by a supervisor and one where there is an active criminal investigation.
You're just moving the goalposts now because your original point was ludicrous.
There's a big difference
There's a big difference between firing an employee for on-the-job versus off-the-job behavior. In an ideal world, as long as your off-the-job misbehavior does not directly and tangibly impact your job (e.g. you're stuck in prison for a long time), it should be protected.
I agree partly
Off the job activities such as political engagement should be protected. Off-the job behavior that reflects negatively on character or fitness for the job is fair game. If your bookkeeper embezzles from his bowling club, even if he hasn’t embezzled from you, you need to fire him. If your employee presents evidence that he is a violent, unstable sociopath you are obligated to fire him rather than putting your other employees and customers at risk.
Two different angles to this conversation.
Starbucks employee is accused by customer of spitting at them.
Starbucks fires employee.
Starbucks then watches video (which takes a while even for store employees because video at Starbucks is not handled on site)
Video shows spitting didn't happen.
Starbucks then realizes they should have put the worker on leave pending an investigation.
Being found ‘not guilty’
does not equal being found innocent.
an excellent theory
So let's apply it to people who aren't making as much money as firefighters. Who's going to cover the paid leave for all the people other than cops and firefighters who are suspended from their jobs while awaiting trial for assault?
Suspended without pay is better than being fired outright, which is what happens to people in a lot of other jobs, if they can't come to work tomorrow because they're in jail because they can't afford cash bail, including for nonviolent crimes, or if their boss thinks it's easier to give the job to someone else.
Sounds like you’re against unions
Because everything you mention is because of the union representation.
You paid a whole lot more....
to cops and firefighters (teachers and school administrators too) who were fired and then reinstated because the City didn't follow labor laws and contracts. Administrative leave is pretty standard for workplace investigations.