Simply, the employer has to show that you weren't doing your job and that you've been warned in the past. Here in Georgia the employer doesn't need to give you a warning and an employer can fire a secretary for gaining weight or an engineer for hiring an African-American. I've seen people fired for going on job interviews, for upsetting a manager, and for all sorts of reasons despite the employee doing excellent work for the company they were working for. For those of you who think I should go back to NY, well that's just silly. Since we're in America we have the right to try and change things for the better.
Public safety needs a raise and the unions can help but it takes time.
I hope the officers do choose to unionize. I hope more firefighters not only join their union but also get involved in their union so that if the union isn't what they expected then they can become active and make changes in the union leadership. I hope they email me and ask. I'd be more than happy to. Unfortunately I don't think there is much that we can do except contact our commissioners and let them know how we feel.