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What will the City Council do about the firefighters contract?
By adamg on Sat, 05/08/2010 - 12:22pm
We'll find out Wednesday, when the council considers a 19% retroactive raise for Boston firefighters awarded by an arbitration panel - the council has the power to reject the award.
The Globe reports the arbitration panel concluded firefighters deserved an extra $2,000 a year in exchange for proving they're not coked up, in addition to a base pay increase equal to that given to other city workers over the same period (well, two of the three panel members; one called the award "a slap in the face" to Boston taxpayers).
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Comments
I cannot believe there is even going to be a debate
In almost every other case, a public entity would be stuck with the arbitrator's decision (they are nearly impossible to successfully appeal in the courts, no matter how absurd), but this is one of very few exceptions. I have to believe that the law is that way for a reason - and I think that reason is that the one legislator that actually thought about the Commonwealth's alternative dispute resolution policy realized that empowering one or three people to compel a municipality to expend money flies in the face of our long tradition that the legislative branch makes appropriations.
I do not understand how it cannot be clear to everyone that it should be political suicide to not kill this. On the other hand, this is an opportunity for a grossly overpaid council (they have few real functions by law in the mayor-strong form of government in Boston) to become political heroes to the electorate (excepting the firefighters who actually live in Boston). I just cannot understand how there is even a debate here, especially if you consider what this will do to the city's bargaining position in negotiations with other unions as their contracts come up.
I do not live in Boston, but if I did, I would promise my councillor that if s/he did not vote against implementing the arbitrator's decision, I would file the necessary paperwork run against him/her within two hours of his/her vote. This is also an example of one of the reasons why I will not live in a community with a city form of government. There is no way in hell such a decision would survive a town meeting vote anywhere in the state (in the current economic climate).
What do firefighters think?
Do any firefighters in Boston or elsewhere read UH? What do you think?
If not, does anyone know people in the BFD? What are they saying about this?
I'm not 100% sure...
but this 19% is over a 7 year period retroactivly. So the raise is around 3% a year which is comparable to what other city and state unions got in the same period without giving up concessions (if you call having to be drug tested a consession). This is what a Boston Firefighter told me anyway and the comparable raises is why they came up with the fire raise.
Perhaps that is correct, but it raises another interesting point
You are probably correct in that a 3% per year increase is more or less what the other unions got. On the other hand, almost all of the non-unionized employees got 0% a year for the past 2 years, and had to take unpaid furlough days to boot. What kind of a crazy incentive does that set up? Answer: an incentive for all non-unionized public employees to get their butts into a union as quickly as possible. Is total unionization of the public workforce really in the the best interest of the body politic? I think the Boston City Council (and everyone else) should think about that, too.
You are right.
But mostly anyone that is allowed to form or join a Union is already in a Union. You have a choice in what job you want to apply for. The market should set the rate for salaries public and non-public.
Another interesting thing I have heard recently about these libraries is that the City has plenty of money but wanted to cut these libraries anyway. So they came up with the excuse that they couldn't "afford" to keep them open.
Pete, I respectfully disagree
Pete, I respectfully disagree with the premise. There are many administrative employees in the cities, towns, authorities, universities, colleges, and elsewhere who could unionize, but have thus far chosen not to. This is particularly true of state employees in professional positions (engineers, lawyers, etc.). If the disparate treatment in favor of the unions continues, currently non-unionized employees will unionize and the cost implications will be great indeed.
I think you might be right on the libraries. I have heard similar things.
I think its just tougher to form unions I guess
When these non-union jobs already have job descriptions and work paramaters made up. I mean, the main function of these unions is to negotiate salaries as a collective unit. But they still have that choice to unionize if they want to then right?
I think 4 years
I believe '06 was the last year they had a contract. I believe this is '07,08,09 and 10 with a 2.5% kicker for the drug testing that kicks in for '11 (which starts July 1, 2010). Averages out to about 4% a year - and then they are up for a new contract in '11.
19% over 7 years is much less
19% over 7 years is much less than 3% a year. 3% a year for 7 years is 23%. It's 2.5% a year.
Going back to the table means no random drug testing,
ar least for now. You think the firefighters will cave in eventually? Maybe we go back to arbitration next year? What happens if the city doesn't like that decision either?
Leverage
Where is the union's leverage? How can they not cave? Will the union leaders direct the membership to strike (I am not sure they legally can) or conduct a work slow-down and watch people die (I think that 90% of the membership would tell the "leadership" to piss off in that case)? In any event, would that win the union any leverage (or public sympathy)?
I am all for paying these folks a decent wage with a premium for the dangerous work that they do, but I think that they already get that and then some, and directing the city to fork over such a substantial amount of money essentially in lump sum seems a little unreasonable in the current economic environment. There are also lots of other things the city could put back on the table in exchange for accepting the arbitrators number.
The biggest leverage fire unions have:
Is calling in sick and forcing the department to hire overtime shifts. Sometimes called "sickouts" and old union tactic is having large amounts of members call in sick on selective days so the city is forced to pay overtime.
Regionalize/Privatize
Growing trend is to have overlapping districts so that, for example, Boston shares districts with Somerville, Cambridge, Brookline, Milton and others. Out west a lot of people are actually hiring private firms for fire protection and where I'm from we have mostly volunteers. You need pros for the technical stuff - high rises, industrial etc. but the volunteers do a fine job with your typical house fire/small biz that would be typical of HP, West Rox, Rozzie etc. Not holding my breath - but it may come to this.
I don't know Stevil.
I live in a small town and I don't mind paying high taxes for a good school system and fire department that is right down the street. I certainly don't want volunteers in charge of that stuff. I want a paid professional staff to come to my house if someone breaks in or if my house burns down. There are plenty of people in my town who probably agree.
Now if I lived in a town that might not have the resources to get this stuff done, I might have to take that risk of having a volunteer fire department or have to depend on a state trooper that covers 10 towns and x amount of square milage.
Because that's what you're used to
I grew up outside of NY city and most of the towns had volunteers. according to this site almost 80% of the firefighters in this country are volunteers (as a matter of fact i heard a lot of the volunteers on Long Island are off duty NY city firemen)
http://www.nfpa.org/categoryList.asp?categoryID=41...
I was shocked when I heard every litte town around here has a professional force (does anyone have volunteers?). I'm sure it's happened, but my parents have lived in Westchester where most towns have volunteers for 50 years and I've never heard of anything happening because "they had volunteers and that never would have happened with the professionals". With 80% volunteers nationwide - they must be doing something right.
Having lived with volunteers half of my life I would have zero concerns about a volunteer force covering my home unless I lived in a high rise or near a hazardous materials site (although even there the local boys often get special training).
Are any of those towns densely built up?
I mean, I lived in Westchester for a few years as a kid; nothing against volunteers, but Roxbury is going to require a different set of firefighting skills than, oh, Mohegan Lake or Harmon on Hudson.
Parts
Just about every town has the stuff you'll typicaly find everywhere west of Mass Ave - single family, multi-family, townhomes, garden apartments, midrise apartments 4-8 stories, restaurants, light industry, office, industrial park etc. as posted below - they train and prep like the regulars - the big difference is that they are not as busy so it doesn't make sense to fully staff the house all the time with paid firefighters.
Newburgh, Peekskill, Yonkers, Ithaca, Poughkeepsie,
all these towns have paid fire departments because of their size I assume. But I do beleive towns like Beacon split them into fulltime and parttime.
Again, those people down there pay 3x as much in taxes that we do. I have no idea why that is or where that money goes, but it's true.
Schools and no businesses
Don't know about these cities - they are among the larger municipalities there and may have paid departments.
My dad pays $12k on a house worth about $500k. They pay a fortune for schools - that's probably at least a third - maybe half. The other thing you have to remember is these small towns have essentially no business base. Over 60% of Boston's taxes are paid by businesses - if we had the business base of these small towns and no classification a $500k home in boston our tax rate would be over $20 per thousand - meaning our taxes would be about the same as theirs - even though we have massive economies of scale in comparison.
Forget about Boston
You have to compare the business bases of these towns to similar towns like Dover, Millis, Lexington, Concord, Canton, etc dont you?
I believe some towns like Holliston and maybe Stow have Volunteer Fire Departments or Ambulances Services I think. I remember reading about those towns.
Also these towns in NY are set up a little different from what I gather. In Newburgh you have the City of Newburgh, the town of Newburgh, and the town of New Windsor and the village of Marlboro. T
PS
Pete - we'll have to meet at McGolf someday and do something about that slice!
No, no, no
I do not want volunteers trying to deal with fires in any of the triple deckers or apartment buildings along Washington Street in Roslindale and West Roxbury.
Volunteers get the same training as pros...
.. at least in Conn. My brother is a volunteer in a 18k pop town (vs W. Rox 28k pop). They have to train (and regularly retrain) at the same state facility that the pros do. They got a ladder truck years ago to deal with all the condo, apartment, office, factory, etc. buildings. Since such buildings are "been there, done that" to them, they wouldn't "try" to deal with such a fire. They'd just do what they've done before - rescue everyone and put the fire out.
Even the technical ones
I grew up in Hauppauge, an hour from NYC, home to both high-rise office buildings and one of the largest industrial parks in the country. We had an all-volunteer fire department.
Speak for yourself, but I
Speak for yourself Stevil, but I don't want my house in the hands of volunteers if it ever catches on fire. And more to the point, I suspect the underwriters for my insurance coverage don't either.
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I see several beat me to this point -- glad to see many of us are rational about this kind of issue.
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What you may see happen though...
Is have more effecient sharing of fire departments around Metro-Boston and different types of service. You probaby don't need fire trucks to respond to every medical, and there is probably a way to make dispatch centers more effecient. I think out in Wayland or Sudbury they are talking about combining dispatch centers and other town resources. You will see that stuff happen more than you will see volunteer departments.
Clearly none of you have lived in a city with Volunteers
As someone who is a volunteer fire fighter in a large county (846,000 some odd people according to US Census for 2005, 498 Square Miles) in Maryland, I can assure you the fires go out just as quick as any paid department in the country. My particular county has a combination Paid / Volunteer system where it is primarily paid 7a-3p, M-F with volunteers running afternoons, evenings, nights and weekends. We have high rises, comercial, industrial, and residential areas, miles of highways and waterways. Many of the volunteer fire fighters are paid fire fighters in the surrounding cities- DC, Baltimore - but there are a lot who aren't. We go through all the same trainings, and many go through additional training on top of that.
That being said, there is a reason why big cities don't have volunteer fire deparmtents. Cities tend to lack the demographics that make up large parts of volunteer man power. Because of work schedules and families, there are times when staffing is lighter than others for volunteers.
I'm not familiar with the requirements of all city positions, but I know that Boston fire fighters are required to live in the city for a certain number of years after being hired. I don't know of this happeneing in any other city in America. DC and Baltimore certainly don't - though they still give hiring preference to city residents - and FDNY requires fire fighters to live in the City or a number of surrounding counties. If fire fighters in Boston have to live in the city proper, they need to be able to afford to live here. Maybe if the residency rules were relaxed the salaries wouldn't be so high.
What's the difference between a fire fighter working and Boston and then living in Milton and a teacher working in Boston and living in Brookline?
Is Halliburton available for fire suppression?
Maybe Blackwater could replace the BPD.
Blackwater is too busy
Deepthroating the GOP
"RNC's Young Eagles will be holding an April fundraiser at the headquarters of Blackwater in Moyock, North Carolina, Politico is reporting."
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/...
YES! Blackwater is available
but you might have a problem with the collateral damage.
My friend ...
To threaten a city councilor with retribution would do no good. First off, they all just won re-election, last fall, several with no opposition. The next election isn't until Fall, 2011.
And, I am going to guess that several, if not the majority, do not want to offend the firefighters, no matter what. I suspect "supporting our hardworking men and women" will be the theme of the day, when they debate this.
sick-outs are not dealing in good faith
The best way to get the firefighter's union to come to the table next time ready to deal, is to pass on the retroactive raise, and instead offer a cost of living raise (inflation rate) and 2% for consenting to random drug test as a one-time increase never to be renegotiated.
People who call in sick as a tactic to extort overtime pay for their colleagues are not dealing in good faith.
Changing the rules after the game
Imagine the Super Bowl between the Pats and the Giants has ended. The NFL then says wait, yes you all played the game under the rules but we really wanted the Patriots to win. So the game is canceled and you have to play again.
That is what those telling the Boston City Council to refuse to fund the $39 milion Fire Fighters contract are essentially saying.
If you read the 23 page document instead of colunmists and listening to talk shows, the decision is clear and direct.
The Arbitrator was selected and approved by both Management and Labor. Management had 12 representatives involved in the process, Labor had 7. 21 days of presentations and testimony and thousands of pages of documents. Hardly a process stacked against Management.
On page 14 of the decision, the Arbitrator makes a very clear point as to the danger of the work men and women in the Boston Fire Department do:
"By training, job description and duty, policemen and firemen respond to public safety dangers by racing towards incidents of violence and destruction from which everyone is trying to escape."
The actual cost of the award, as detremined by a third party selected by Management and Labor is $39 million - not the $74 million claimed by the city (Page 16).
"Altogether, the Panel's Award provides the same retroactive 14 percent increase over the four-year period as received by the patrolmen. However, given the Panel's six-month deferral of the last base wage adjustment in deference to contemporary economic conditions, the cost of our Award over its four-year term ia approximately $39 million, compared to $41 million had the exact terms of the patrolmen's pattern beem applied."
And even stronger language on the REAL cost of the Award (page 19)
"Based on factual record evidence and impartial analysis, uninfluenced by rhetoric, proactive disclousres, orchestrated disinformation campaings and manufactured factoids, I am persuaded the cost of the Panel's Award of the 2006 public safety pattern, as modified by the six-month wage deferral in Year 4, the limited last day Special Ops stipend and the last day increment of 2.5% for the truly random drug and alchhol poliyc, is $39. 4 million over the four-year term."
On the City's ability to pay for the Award (Page 21)
"Thus, if the police settlements are deemed by the City to be affordable and appropriate under all of the circumstances, then the Award the Panel also id both affordable and appropriate."
The final damning statement on Management's presentation (page 21 and 22):
"With regard to the DOR free cash certification issues, in the final analysis the disagreement between Ms. Signori and Mr. Dasey regarding the size of the free cash reserve is irrelevant. Dasey testified that available funds from all sources is $456 million, while Signori says $125 million . . . Even if, arguendo, Signori's version is available cash and even if, arguendo, Signori's version is more accurate, the point is that the undisputed amounts are more than adequate to pay for the Panel Award through not only FY 2010 but also through FY 2011. . . . The Panel does not disregard or take lightly the unanticipated financial strains on the City of Boston in this time of national economic termoil. But the City's bargaining strategy and proposal award reflecte a calculated effort to gain firefighter random drug and alcohol testing without paying the fair and reasonable quid pro quo to the fire fighters."
Management played a high stakes poker game with the Fire Fighters and lost. The cost of the Award is $39.4 million not $74 million. The Union played by the rules and achived an Award that is balanced and fair.
The Boston City Council must approve the independent, third party Arbitrator's Award. .Or if you are going to change the rules after the game is over then give the Fire Fighters the right to strike for their next contract.
Approval isn't a rubber stamp. It is a basic concept of respecting collective bargaining and the resolution process.
Yes
You make a valid (and obvious) point that no one else states - that they went to arbitration and one side won and one side lost, so we'll have to live with it.
What is absolutely amazing to me is that (once again) the mayor is able to fly through this with no criticism, just like the library closures. It's Tom Menino's fault, and no one else's, that this went to arbitration because he was unwilling to settle the situation over the past five (FIVE!) years.
He's the Teflon man!
Checks and balances
The law clearly states that the City Council has to approve all arbitration decisions as one last check on the budget process. It's actually a great for the arbitrator and the mayor to "kick the can" down the road. They'll probably approve it and that will be their excuse for the next crisis. Somehow the fact that inflation has increased 25% over the past 10 years but costs per employee have increased about 65% while cutting services (and 10% smaller school department) has escaped our friends at the Globe and the Herald. There's a word for a business that operates like that - bankrupt.
firefighters contract award
amen! now only if the rest of this city realized the plain & simple truth. thank you
time value of money
I would just like to also point out that because this raise is retro active to 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, that had the fire fighters actually received simple inflation adjusted raises each of these years they would have had the option to invest the money and make a return on it each year, the way those of us in the private sector do. So for example if a fire fighter had received a 3% raise in 2006 that equaled $1,500, they could have invested it in a mutual fund and made a healthy return on it for 2006 and 2007 (two of the most productive years in history) then they could have stuck it in a CD making 1%-2% a year. So if we were to do a true discounted cash flow analysis it would show that because they are getting the money retro actively the true value of the raise is significantly less than 19%.
Let us also not forget that the money that should have gone to pay the fire fighters (and teachers and police) simple inflation adjusted raises was not just sitting under Menino's mattress for the past 5 years. During this time the city of Boston was making a return on that money. Is it any wonder why the City wants to stall negotiations and only award raises retro actively? The return they are making on the money is probably bigger than the millions they spend to fight the unions.