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Friday, February 10, 2012
Firefighters say they will sue city for "unfair bargaining"
by Kathleen Haley, published on June 24, 2009 at 3:16 PM
Storyline: City Budget
Local firefighters are now saying they will sue the city, a day after the City Council decided to lay off 68 firefighters.
The firefighters’ union, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522, sent out a press release Wednesday alleging that city officials have engaged in “unfair bargaining practices.”
The city has "not received or been served with any litigation documents," said acting city spokeswoman Wendy Klock-Johnson. " Until such time [that] we are and they are reviewed by the City Attorney we are unable to comment."
Local 522 firefighter and spokesman Chris Harvey expressed frustration with the city’s decision to throw out the latest tentative deal between the two parties. The most recent agreement featured a 5 percent salary cut for firefighters during the 2009/2010 fiscal year. The deal would have also required city officials to not lay off firefighters for one year.
"The city’s rejection of the firefighters' fair and reasonable deal supported by Councilmembers Lauren Hammond and Steve Cohn to take pay-cuts in return for no layoffs clearly shows that the city’s intent all along was to lay off firefighters,” Harvey said in a statement.
An earlier deal between the two groups failed. It included a five-year agreement with pay raises that totaled 11 percent by 2014. In another doomed deal, firefighters would have received small raises in 2010 and 2011, and would have skipped their planned five percent cost-of-living increase.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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http://cityofsacramento.org/finance/budget/Proposed-Budget-FY2009-10.cfm
You might even find yourself asking more questions and formulating your own questions as to where is the money going. If public safety already receives 72% of the non-discretionary portion of the general fund, leaving 28% for all those other departments that also rely upon the general fund for their budgets...why did those other departments have to cut their budgets up to 35% and yet Fire's actually increased. See page 156-that's a 1.73 million increase over last year. Why are the stories saying 68 firemen are being laid off when again on page 156 it says 52 FTE positions lost?
So here's the numbers as they appear in the budget...see page 157...regarding the question. 2008-2009... staffing is currently 634 FTEs and 2009-2010 is proposed at 582...How much would each of those currently funded 634 FTEs need to sacrifice to keep all in the dept. on the job and save the department 5 mil? How about 303.33 per paycheck at 26 paychecks per year. And don't forget...the charts say their budget increased. And you might ask is it 52, 68 or some number in between. You might try doing this same research for other departments....you might even begin to question some of the statements being made .... and to save midtown....good luck on figuring out DSD's red ink now that they have been re-invented as the Community Dev Dept...you might need to go back a few budgets to unravel it all.
I asked Gus Vina, an assistant city manager, to explain the city's "68 layoffs" figure in a June 5 story. Vina said that the 68 layoffs figure includes 50 firefighters, nine engineers and nine captains. The engineers and captains have the ability to move down to firefighter positions, which would displace people in those positions, he said.
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/8948/Firefighters_scrap_labor_deal_with_city_talks_may_resume
Thanks for your comment.
Cheers,
Kathleen
http://cityofsacramento.org/finance/budget/documents/28_Staffing2010P.pdf
Fire Captains (107)& Fire Apparatus operators (94) -No change in number from last year to this year. There is no mention of removing any from these two positions.
I would like to correct a typo in my previous post -"72% of the non discretionary portion of the general fund" should have read 72% of the discretionary portion of the general fund.
The union, Local 522, said earlier this month that more than 70 firefighters received layoff notices.
The number of layoff notices distributed to firefighters has been a point of contention between the city and the firefighters' union.
Cheers,
Kathleen