OH Firefighters Agree to One-Year Pay Freeze

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, OH—The city and its firefighters union have come to a contract agreement in which the International Association of Firefighters, Local 974, agreed to a wage freeze for the first year of the three-year deal. City Council agreed to the new contract during its Zoom meeting held Monday, Oct. 19.

With the city facing uncertainty as to its tax collections in a year in which COVID-19 has played havoc with communities' budgets, Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan was grateful for the union’s consideration.

“Everybody is rising to the occasion during this pandemic,” Brennan said. "If we could give them raises, we would give them, but we can’t commit to that right now, and the fire union understands that. They look out for us every day in their capacity as firefighters, and they were looking out for us with this (agreement).

“It means the world to me. It’s not typical for a union not to seek a raise, but they understand it. They understand what’s going on in the community.”

The city and the union plan to get together next summer, by June 30, when the deal’s first year expires, and attempt to come up with a satisfactory amount for raises for the second and third year of the agreement. “We’ll pick it up again next year when we have a better idea of where we are (financially),” Brennan said.

It is the first of four contracts the city has to hammer out with its unions. Still to come are agreements with police officers and police administrators, and public service department workers. Brennan said he would not negotiate via the press and state whether he would ask the other unions to accept a wage freeze, but usually union agreements within a city are similar, which likely means that other unions will also be asked to accept a wage freeze for the first year of their deals.

“We’re appreciative of what the firefighters did, and we hope the rest of our employees understand the situation,” Brennan said.

Meanwhile, council also approved Monday pay for city employees who were furloughed four hours per week, each Friday beginning in June, for 16 weeks, as the city attempted to save money. In all, council approved $44,682 for the employees. Brennan said he felt it was important that employees get paid for the time they missed due to something that was not their fault.

“They all worked fewer hours, but they all completed their work every week,” he said. “It’s important for us to stand by them, just as they stood by us and worked hard for us.”

Brennan said that firefighters were also prepared to take less, “to do something in solidarity” with their fellow, non-union employees. Firefighters were not furloughed, but Brennan said it was another example of the firefighters understanding of the city’s financial situation.

The firefighters did, as part of the new contract, receive a new vacation tier for those who have served with the department at least 24 years, and had some overtime pay issues clarified.

During the council meeting, Finance Director Dennis Kennedy said that the city was down 6.1 percent, or about $524,000 in income tax collections when compared to this time last year. The current and expected rise in COVID-19 cases, however, leaves in doubt just how much revenue the city will be collecting in months ahead. The city has already taken steps to reduce expenditures by more than $1 million, such as delaying its road repair program until 2021.

After the meeting, when speaking to cleveland.com of the pandemic, Brennan was critical of the federal government and President Donald Trump.

“It’s not just our community, it’s communities everywhere,” Brennan said of the uncertainty the pandemic has caused. "We’re in a difficult place right now. We’ve had the utmost failure in leadership on the national level. It’s wrecked the economy. It tried to open the economy before we had the pandemic under control.

"Family matters, culture matters, being able to go to church matters. All these things matter, but in order to have them, we have to re-commit. We have to be disciplined in knocking off this virus.

“But we’re trying to have it both ways. We’re trying to have dessert before we have dinner. Everybody wants to be free and walk around without a mask, but you have to do the things you have to do to stop the virus in its tracks. But we never had the national commitment that we needed to have from our national leadership, by that I mean the President.”

Brennan said Gov. Mike DeWine “started out fine,” but that when Dr. Amy Action resigned, “or was made to resign, or pressured to resign” as Ohio health director, things took a turn for the worse. “We are not doing what we ought to be doing in Ohio,” he said.

The mayor noted that the holiday season is coming up and COVID cases are on the rise.

“That’s not good. We have to do something about it, and it starts with responsibility. I know everybody is tired (of the pandemic). I’m tired. But we have to do it. We have to keep our guard up.”

Census complete

Communications and Civic Engagement Coordinator Mike Cook told council that the 2020 Census count ended Oct. 15, and the city saw an increase in reporting. In 2010, 71.5 percent of residents self-reported. This year, Brennan sought to greatly increase that percentage and put Cook in charge of the campaign

Cook had plans for a team to go door to door to remind people to fill out their census forms, but COVID interfered with those plans, and others. Cook announced that, nonetheless, the percentage rose this year to 76 percent.

“I believe we were undercounted in 2010, and that cost us,” Brennan said. “We receive (government) money based on our population. I’m proud of what we did this year, and I thought Mike Cook did a great job with that. We have John Carroll (University), and their students were sent home when the pandemic hit. That made the job harder, as did a lot of other things.”

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