By Shira Schoenberg
The Concord Monitor (New Hampshire)
CONCORD, NH — The unions representing Concord’s firefighters and fire officers have signed contracts with the city, after months of negotiations over wages.
The firefighters had been working without a contract for almost 14 months, and the officers for eight months.
“I feel like this was a good way to resolve some issues and move forward,” said Concord Fire Chief Dan Andrus.
Derek Martel, president of Local 1045, which represents 77 employees, including firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers, and alarm and signal technicians, said he is happy negotiations are finally over. Martel said the union’s negotiating team first sat down with the city in December 2006. Its contract expired in July 2007.
Martel said he believes the tough economic times and the city council’s adoption of a new pay scale helped break the stalemate. He added that Andrus’s arrival as the new fire chief in June, and his own induction as union president in May, brought new perspectives to the table.
“It’s not any one thing that changed so much as good, open dialogue between us, city administration and fire administration,” Martel said.
Of the city’s six unions, the only remaining one without a contract is AFSCME, which represents about 100 city employees, mostly in general services, said City Manager Tom Aspell. Of the Fire Department’s 111 employees, Andrus said 105 are covered by the two new contracts.
According to both sides, the major sticking point during negotiations was wages, in particular a new pay scale adopted by the city.
The new pay scale was passed by the city council in January and implemented for noncontractual employees in February. Members of the city’s UAW chapter have since adopted the pay scale. The city’s police officers and supervisors have not, said city Human Resources Director Norm O’Neil. The new firefighter and fire officer contracts bring those unions in line with the new scale.
According to O’Neil, the new pay scale allows for wages to grow at a more consistent rate over a longer period of time than the old system. The new scale has 16 steps, or levels of experience. Each time an employee goes up a step, by working for another year, that person’s wages increase by 2.5 percent.
According to the old scales, fire officers were paid a 3 percent raise during their first years with the department, tapering to a 1 percent yearly raise later on in their careers. The fire officers union, Local 3195, represents 28 employees.
Dispatchers represented by the firefighters union were paid on a 10-step system, with a 3 percent raise for each step.
Firefighters, firefighter/paramedics and alarm and signal technicians were paid on an eight-step system, earning a 6 percent raise for the first three steps, which decreased to 3 percent and then 2 percent, O’Neil said.
Under the new system, employees earlier in their careers will see lower raises, while those further along in their careers will see higher raises.
“This was something we looked at organization-wide, as part of a study, to try to make sure our employees were paid market wages and that they moved along a schedule in a fashion where there was consistent growth,” O’Neil said.
Andrus said the new pay scale compensates fire department employees at a rate in line with market values. Earlier reports said some employees were being paid at a rate below market values, he said.
Martel said the new scale “puts us at, or a little above, what we would have hoped.”
The contracts were implemented retroactively. The new contract for the fire officers runs from Jan. 1, 2008, to June 30, 2012. The fire officers will get no raises in 2008 and afterward will be on the city’s new wage scale. In addition to the raises mandated by the new scale, officers will get cost-of-living increases ranging from 2 to 4 percent a year, depending on the Consumer Price Index.
The firefighters contract runs from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2011. The firefighters received no raises for the first fiscal year, which ran through June 30, 2008. As of July 1, all union members entered the city’s new pay scale. Like the fire officers, the firefighters will get raises of 2 to 4 percent in 2009 and 2010, depending on the Consumer Price Index.
The unions ratified the contracts Aug. 21, and the city council approved them Aug. 25. They were signed and made public Friday.
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