Rhode Island City Plans to Ban Firefighter Moonlighting

WOONSOCKET, R.I. -- Amid concerns that recent layoffs on the Woonsocket Fire Department will increase forced overtime and on-the-job fatigue, city officials disclosed Tuesday that they intend to prohibit firefighters from holding outside employment beginning in April.

"From our perspective we are just trying to relieve the stress on the overworked firefighters," said city attorney Chris Lambert. "We don't want to add to that."

Lambert said the city also intends to address the fatigue issue by abandoning a longstanding fire department policy of having an engine accompany every rescue run. He said the move would eliminate perhaps 7,000 engine runs per year, further easing the strain on manpower.

Members of Local 732 of the International Association of Fire Fighters quickly denounced the proposals.

Lt. Steve Reilly, president of the union, questioned whether the city has the legal authority to prohibit firefighters from moonlighting or how such restrictions could be realistically enforced.

"When we're at the fire department we're at the fire department," said Reilly. "When we're not here how can the city tell us what we can't do? If you ask me that doesn't even sound constitutional."

The IAFF first raised the fatigue issue in Superior Court two weeks ago in opposition to the city's efforts to lay off union members as part of a strategy for coping with a $3.6 million cut in state aid. The city pushed for the layoffs after proposing firefighters, and police, take a five percent pay cut and begin paying 15 percent of their gross pay toward health insurance premiums.

After a ruling last week that was adverse to the IAFF, the city laid off 11 firefighters on Monday. Combined with seven positions that were vacant because of recent retirements, the fire department's workforce has been reduced from its normal complement of 132 members to 115, including the fire chief and two daytime administrators.

Fire Chief Kenneth A. Finlay said the department has been getting by with the cutbacks, but the layoffs have already increased overtime "which we knew was going to happen." He said he's had to hold over workers on several shifts for overtime since the layoffs took effect.

As a precautionary measure, Finlay said he has adopted an emergency policy of limiting any firefighters from working more than 48 hours in a row without a break. Regular time for firefighters is normally two 10-hour day shifts followed by two 14-hour night shifts, followed by four days off. Overtime is paid whenever a firefighters is called to fill in on any shift that is not a part of the normal, regular time cycle, which averages about 42 hours a week.

Finlay, who recently cited strife between the union and the administration as cause for his retirement, effective March 28, said he believes that there is a higher risk for on-the-job injuries when workers are overtired from too much overtime. Because of the nature of their work cycle, many firefighters are free to work side jobs, especially in self-employed endeavors like carpentry, electrical work and the like, Finlay said.

But Finlay seemed surprised that the city was planning to bar firefighters from outside work, raising some of the same questions as Reilly. He said it might seem justified to prohibit firefighters from engaging in outside pursuits if it could be proven that their job performance was affected, but he said he had no idea how that could be objectively judged.

"Suppose your boss said you couldn't work a part-time job," said Finlay. "It raises an interesting question. I have no idea how they're going to accomplish that."

Reilly said he was even more alarmed by the elimination of an engine to accompany ambulance runs ?????? and city residents should be as well, he said. All the personnel on fire engines are trained emergency medical technicians, he said, and they often begin administering life-saving medical aid before rescue personnel because, in a city with just two ambulances and five fire stations, they are invariably first to arrive in response to 911 calls.

But Lambert said the numbers elicited during testimony at the hearing on layoffs before Judge Susan McGuirl spoke volumes. He said firefighters testified there were some 10,000 calls for service last year. Of those, about 7,000 were occasions when engines were dispatched to accompany ambulances. Another 2,000 calls were for false alarms.

Only about 240 of the calls firefighters answered last year were fires, said Lambert, and of those, only about 40 were structure fires. Ending the wasteful practice of dispatching an engine with every medical run will ease the strain on firefighters without affecting public safety, he said.

While Lambert and lawyer Joseph Rodio, the city's lead attorney on labor issues, said the city was prepared to enact the changes, they declined to discuss the legal basis for prohibiting moonlighting or how they planned to enforce it. Edward C. Roy Jr., the lawyer who represents the IAFF, suggested that the changes might be punitive and said the union might respond with an unfair labor charge or a contractual grievance, but he said it was too soon to tell without further consultation with his clients.

In their Superior Court testimony opposing layoffs, firefighters passionately argued that personnel cuts were not only a violation of the collective bargaining agreement, but exposed firefighters to dangerous increases in fatigue and job stress. In her ruling, however, McGuirl dismissed the fatigue defense, saying all the testimony she had heard on the matter was speculative and uncorroborated by fact-based research.

The city says the layoffs are needed to help save some $729,000 in the fire department's budget at part of Mayor Susan D. Menard's cost-savings plan. After McGuirl's ruling, city officials expressed hope it would bring the city and the IAFF closer to a negotiated settlement on contractual concessions as an alternative to layoffs.

Since the ruling, Rodio said there has been substantial progress toward inking a new deal with union members from the Woonsocket Police Department, but he expressed little hope for a quick resolution with firefighters. There have been no new talks with firefighters and none are planned, he said.

"The police have come a long way toward the middle and so has the city," he said. "We're five percent away with the police, but we're still 80 percent away with the firefighters."

Joseph Andriole, a staff representative with the State Association of Firefighters, said the union still believes the layoffs will not save the city any money when paying unemployment compensation and increased overtime are taken into account.

"At this point I don't think it's about economics," he said. "It's about the principle that they could make the layoffs and wanting to show that they could do it. It's like an onion. The more you peel away at the layers and get to the root the clear picture is there."

Republished with permission of The Woonsocket Call.