Im not going to give too much info since who knows who's reading this and can track it back to me. I saw info on the changes to our contract, and to say my jaw dropped is an understatement. I can't for the life of me understand how the city can think its okay to try and count chiefs toward maning and use a nearby jurisdiction's 2 man apparatus as emergency staffing.
I get it. We work alot of ot, but another officer in a pickup doesn't help us on a fire scene in the same way as a 3rd or 4th on an engine.
Well survive we are cowboy company and have made small staffs work so far but the city is gaining population not losing people.
Also, shame on the old men running the union prioritizing the dollar bills paid over obvious nfpa safety concerns. I guess the city will wait til people die and they get sued to make changes.
Does this contract benefit the older guys? If it doesn’t benefit everyone, vote it down and go into impasse. They’ll call a third party in to decide what’s “fair” depending on money, call volume, resources and what neighboring departments have
This is a good plan, but just make sure it applies to you. Every department does arbitration differently (I think it's laid out in your current contract with the city, or maybe it's state rules?). Who is paying the third party? Who gets to choose the third party? How has the third party ruled in other similar circumstances? Is the third party's decision binding or non-binding if either or both parties dont like his decision?
Third party sounds like a great idea, but there are still ways for this to go unfairly
Should be a state thing. I’ve been through impasse before, it’s a neutral third party that the city will be responsible for paying for. The third party gives a recommendation to the city but I’ve never heard of them not taking the recommendation. It would probably look very bad on their part not taking the “fair” deal
Depends on the state and your contract language. Some states have binding arbitration that requires the members and city to accept whatever the arbitrator says.
Some have no ruling that means the arbitration may be binding or just a recommendation depending on if you have binding arbitration in your contract.
Lastly is states that explicitly forbid binding arbitration. Makes the arbitration just a recommendation the city can ignore at their leisure and there isn't shit you can do about it. These 3 things alone are why politics are important and why we should all vote for people who strongly support unions and collective bargaining rights.
The chief is on our side and makes all the right arguments like the one you are making, but the city just doesn't care. They'd rather spend money on a park improvements or planting trees in alleyways. Its like a new home buyer wanting to replace a working but dated kitchen and add a pool for 40k rather than replace the leaking oil tank and fix the sinking foundation. One looks good pictures and feels good . The other isnt shiny but isnt needed for the house to function.
A good ff/medic friend of mine pointed out what of disaster response means when literally there is little left is that is recognizable.
You walk out and make sure you and yours are okay. Then you walk to your neighbors and respond there.
He pointed out that in widespread catastrophic disaster, most won’t make it to work, heck, there may be no where to work or apparatus or other staffers—and you may not make it out of your neighborhood and that has to okay, for it’s reality.
I knew he’d seen things, was crazy smart & experienced and, yet, I silently scoffed a bit—how bad would it have to be to keep me from working?
I was an idiot. As it turned out, it only had to be F4 bad.
I’m lucky, the only plane crash I’ve been on was twin engine general aviation. 3 fatalities was plenty chaotic on its own, even though everyone knew there was no patient care gonna happen. Can’t even imagine a passenger jet.
Sorry to hear this is happening to your local. I experienced the same issue. Members coasting towards retirement settled for more money instead of public safety. My advice is get the young members involved with the local. Attend meetings with the local, state or provincial. Attend the PEP courses.
Just look at Fall River Massachusetts about unsafe staffing. ✊🏼
Once you realize that the city has specific people for contract negotiations and the union uses firemen, you’ll see it’s going to always be a losing a battle. I don’t know of a single case where a city was actually upset over a contract that a union actually won.
We pretty much murdered the city on our last contract. We flat out denied 90% of what they wanted, and got a substantial raise. We showed up with the numbers, and they had no argument.
I dunno if they’re upset about it, but they certainly shouldn’t be thrilled either.
Same boat. 2 man engine companies paid department with 120k pop and 6-7 k annual calls. Old heads always say “we’ve always made it work” but god forbid we have a LODD the NIOSH report will have understaffing as the number one preventable cause. Not to mention it jeopardizes the lives of the people we’re here to protect.
I had my first chief point out to me—there are 20 people willing to fill your spot.
At a not insignificant point, I told him he best be getting them hired, cause I’m not stupid and not going to participate in stupid, meaningless nonsense any longer. And “the union” you sold as disgruntled guys that didn’t want to put away their gear or shine their shoes—just gained a spokesmodel. So, replace me if you’re so inclined but I’m calling out the bullshit. Starting yesterday.
It's terrible when your union is weak. Especially when it has nothing to do with the the membership.
My union president is a Lt. And his only concern is setting himself p for a job in retirement. Terrified of ruffling feathers. Also, allowing retired members equal vote is a sin.
Yes currently. However we are headed for arbitration in our current negotiations. The chief is a jerk who is wanting the union to give him the authority to do whatever he wants with manpower.
Have you served in the negotiating committee? After 23 years on this was my first time. Totally different view point. District came in asking for ridiculous things. Where we landed at in the middle was good, but many ppl were upset and wouldn’t have been had they gotten more details.
Not saying this was the case w/ your dept. but different seats give you different views.
This isn’t coming from your Chief. It’s a directive coming from Mayor and Council to lower overtime expenses. I feel bad for your Fire Chiefs to actually have to suggest this as a solution. There is no way they want to get on that truck. They are just trying to save their jobs.
Our department had a similar situation come up this year, our Chiefs decided to implement a new fire bylaw that allows our department to charge the homeowner’s insurance company the overtime expenses, if they had to call in overtime to respond to a fire at their address. This change made our Mayor and Council back right off from forcing our department to make staffing changes.
This has nothing to do with the union contract. The intention is to reduce costs associated to large fires that require additional personnel or mutual aid, which creates a huge financial burden on the department because events like those aren’t budgeted for. Most insurance packages have these costs within the policy. It doesn’t cost the homeowner anything.
Yeah, instead of trying to work out some crazy deal with the union to get chiefs on the back of our trucks to reduce costs. A new cost recovery bylaw was created instead. I’m not sure what you’re missing here.
When I worked for a small one station department where the city was thinking of cutting paid staffing from 3 to 2 man minimum, I went to a city council meeting (off-duty, not in uniform) and explained NFPA 2-in, 1-out rules for rescue. I told them that if your grandkids house is on fire and we show up in a two-man engine, we aren’t legally able to go interior and rescue your grandkid. Guess what? They voted to continue funding our three-man minimum.
We don’t have one. Never seen a state with a more restrictive law than the OSHA 2/2 standard. And that standard doesn’t apply in a rescue situation anyway.
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u/Mysterious_Poem_5169 3d ago
Vote it down get everyone together to vote no and then run for the union president spot when it comes up and be the change