Conn. Firefighters' Union Challenges City's Fire Plan

April 04--STAMFORD -- The city's professional firefighters' union last week lodged a complaint with the state Board of Labor Relations, claiming the mayor's proposed reorganization of volunteer fire departments violates labor law and their union contract.

The union, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 786, filed the complaint on March 27 over allegations the city negotiated in bad faith and failed to fund the proper number of firefighter positions required by the union contract. The complaint comes as city officials and the union prepare for a binding arbitration hearing later this month on their ongoing and contentious contract negotiations. Local 786 represents about 260 professional firefighters at the Stamford Fire & Rescue Department.

The union, which has a history of labor strife with the volunteer departments, remains a staunch critic of Mayor Michael Pavia's plan to consolidate four of five volunteer fire departments into a single organization called the Stamford Volunteer Fire Department.

Shortly after Pavia introduced the plan in 2010, the union hired a public relations firm and created a blog to attack the plan's perceived flaws in safety and staffing. The labor board complaint marks the first time the union has challenged the mayor's plan before a third party.

The union complaint centered many of its allegations on the fire department restructuring plan, which consolidates the Turn of River, Long Ridge, Belltown and Springdale fire departments into a joint venture.

The new department, if approved by the Board of Representatives, would hire its own chief and 47 firefighters to help cover the northern half of Stamford alongside volunteer members. About 50 Stamford Fire & Rescue firefighters now work in the volunteer districts of Turn of River and Springdale in order provide around-the-clock staffing. Those firefighters would be transferred out of the districts and into Stamford Fire & Rescue territory if the mayor's plan is approved.

The union wants state labor officials to prohibit the city from unilaterally transferring those firefighters and from recognizing any labor organization claiming to represent firefighters hired by the Stamford Volunteer Fire Department, according to the complaint.

"The whole thing is not only flawed, but is motivated by a desire to set up a nonunion, paid fire department in Stamford," said John Creane, a Milford attorney who filed the complaint for Local 786. "We think it's an awful idea from any angle you look at it."

The complaint alleged the city wants to subcontract union work to the proposed fire department. It further accuses the city of violating its union contract by failing to fund several firefighter positions in the mayor's proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Instead, city officials and union negotiators wrangle over staffing clauses in the contract, Local 786 President Brendan Keatley said.

Keatley said the city should be funding 188 rank-and-file firefighter positions required by the existing union contract. Officials only gave the department enough money for 182 positions in the proposed budget, he said.

Human Resources Director Emmet Hibson said city officials and the firefighters' union already have an agreement about staffing levels. He discounted allegations about the Stamford Volunteer Fire Department in the union's recently filed labor board complaint.

"In reading the complaint, I don't believe they've raised a claim that is valid, and we're going to defend that at the labor board," Hibson said.

He added the union "overreaches" in the complaint, and that the details about the fire plan are not subject to negotiations with the Local 786. Hibson said past lawsuits and the city Charter prohibit city firefighters from working in volunteer districts, a situation the mayor's plan hopes to remedy by transferring them downtown.

A Department of Labor spokesman said the Board of Labor Relations scheduled a conference on the union's complaint for sometime in May in Stamford.

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