Town, FF Union Dispute 2014-15 Contract Discussions

The town and the firefighters union – despite a two-year court battle over the town's unilateral move to a three-platoon, 24-hour-shift schedule –have commenced negotiations on a 2014-’15 collective bargaining agreement. Two meetings in, there are already differing opinions about what has transpired.

After Superior Court Judge Brian Stern’s ruling Monday, Jan. 6, on the 24-hour-shift schedule, firefighter union representative Ray Furtado said he was pleased Stern sided with the firefighters but said the union had offered the town concessions in the 2014-15 negotiations.

"We’ve had two meetings and the last offer from the union to the town would bring this to a conclusion. It would return us to our safer shifts. It would erase close to $2 million in damages that are currently owed to us in back wages. We’re willing to make that sacrifice just to get this behind us and to move forward together as a community," he said.

The next day, Town Councilor Carol Hueston, the council’s representative in negotiations, took exception to those remarks, saying the union had not made an offer in the current negotiations.

“There was really no formal proposal made,” she said last week. “We made two proposals to the fire department, both of which we had given before. They gave us the entire contract all marked up. The second meeting, they gave us no written proposal. What they offered to do was the same proposal they had offered before, which was rejected by the council.”

That offer was verbal, not written, Hueston said.

The town’s labor lawyer, Dan Kinder, concurred, saying the union did not make a "firm proposal."

“After the town gave them two alternative proposals in writing at one meeting, they came to the next one and declined to give any proposal in writing," Kinder said, referring to the firefighters union. "They did say they would consider accepting a proposal the council rejected unanimously a year ago, if the town would pay, in addition, an amount they did not specify, but said would be about $1.5 million up front.”

Furtado disputes that account.

“[Hueston] was sitting at the table next to Dan [Kinder] when we laid out the proposal,” he said. “It was very similar to the tentative agreement that she said she would support a year ago, however it was updated to allow for another year’s worth of salary, [and] included more concessions, specifically in the payment of overtime.”

He added, “The proposal was based on the framework of the TA [tentative agreement], with an updated amount for owed wages, which would be paid as a ‘signing bonus.’  We also added a provision that would allow for the payment of ‘straight time’ in lieu of overtime pay in some situations, similar to the police. As a reminder, the tentative agreement also included major healthcare concessions, reduction in longevity pay, holiday pay, and a number of other concessions.”

Furtado said the town’s representatives “committed to taking it to the council on the 13th. They did not have a counter offer.”

[The Town Council meeting scheduled for Jan. 13 was postponed to Thursday, Jan. 16 after sprinkler malfunctions at the Beechwood Senior Center.]

Hueston said the union’s proposal was “the same proposal they had offered before, which was rejected by the council,” and not in writing, so she did not deem it official.

She admitted she had been willing to vote for the proposal negotiated with the union a year ago, but said when she brought that proposal to her colleagues, they weren’t satisfied with the amount of savings.

“We were given our orders by the council,” she recalled. “They said, ‘You go try to get the best deal you can get. When we brought it back, the council didn’t want it…. I was shocked as anyone they didn’t want it. If the council had wanted it, I would have gone along with it.”

Instead, she voted with the rest of the council against the proposal. “It was not the perfect deal, it wasn’t even close to the perfect deal to me,” she said.