r/Firefighting • u/RustyShackles69 Big Rescue Guy • 4d ago

General Discussion New union contract is disappointing/dangerous

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.

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u/jomar99 3d ago edited 3d ago

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.

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u/GuyInNorthCarolina 1d ago

Your fire department has authority to establish a city law unilaterally?

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u/jomar99 1d ago

Yes, it’s through our municipal bylaw process. It was approved by our Mayor and Council.

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u/GuyInNorthCarolina 1d ago

This reads as “if we don’t like our union contract we will force a law to make people pay for fire calls in retaliation”. You realize that right?

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u/jomar99 1d ago

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.

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u/GuyInNorthCarolina 1d ago

The thread is titled “new union contract is disappointing. This was your initial response.

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u/jomar99 1d ago

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.