Article “Sparks fly between mayor, firefighters” reports: “Mayor Rick Gray said he learned Friday that the executive committee of the city firefighters’ 72-member union posted notice of a March 10 no-confidence vote on Chief Tim Gregg….
“’Under our form of government, I appoint the chief,’ Gray pointed out. So the vote is meaningless, he said, except to signal that the executive committee will assume an adversarial position in negotiating the firefighters’ new three-year contract. The current three-year contract, which included a 3 1/4 percent raise this year, expires at year’s end…
“Following an Ohio consultant’s recommendation, the mayor has been urging firefighters to accept a new 24-hours-on and 48-hours-off schedule, under which they would work 48 rather than 42 hours a week.”
WATCHDOG: We vehemently oppose the Wisconsin Republican legislators’ and governor’s attack on the right of unions to represent government employees. But we just as strenuously encourage negotiators to take into consideration the hard times and immense government deficits.
The next round of negotiations with fire fighters and other city unionized employees should be about how much will be the give backs, not about any expansion of wages or benefits.
The mayor should hang tough. We suspect that this time the public and the arbitrators will take the City’s side.
This article about Lancaster City’s firefighters is so one-sided that it is sickening. There is no mention of the verbal abuse and blatantly retaliatory actions which has been piled onto Lancaster’s finest over the past year; every single one of the 27 grievances filed by firefighters is based on something that actually happened.
Neither does this article mention that firefighters are being asked to work an average of six additional hours every week without any extra pay. The proposed schedule would require them to work 24 hours on duty and 48 hours off; this would leave firefighters physically and mentally exhausted after a busy day. How would you like to be rescued from a burning building in the middle of the night by firefighters who are struggling to keep moving?
Nor is there any mention that the it was the city that broke off negotiations with the firefighters, specifically over staffing issues; the city is refusing to guarantee a minimum safe number of firefighters on duty at any time. And the reference to the alternative which would have cost more is because the firefighters were seeking PARTIAL pay for the six hours extra they would be working for free under the administration’s plan.
At a luncheon a few months ago, Mayor Gray told the group that each police and firefighter has full family health coverage that costs the city is $20,000 per family. That is a lot of tax dollars. As we all know the benefits and pensions of public employees are killing the budgets.
He suggested and I have read and heard this from as close as Reading that we need to have County (Metropolian) police and fire to start with. We will save tons of money by doing that. I am all for preventing the real estate tax from being an endless way of paying the bills.
EVERY Lancaster City employee costs well over $20,000 for health insurance, no matter how much or how little they earn.
The way the mayor put it it was only fire and police as requested or should I say negotiated via their unions.
…The city’s healthcare benefits for public safety is split into three tiers:
Single with no dependents (costs about $8K annually)
Married with no children (costs about $12K)
Married with children, or Single with children (costs about $18K)
There are many, many city employees who fall into the bottom tier and take no dependent healthcare benefits.
The suggestion that EVERY city employee costs $20K in healthcare benefits is 100% FALSE. Anyone who suggests such needs to do their homework, because right now you get an F.
Figures. The specific details are negotiated by each union, but the overall
cost of each package is the same.