By Lucas High
The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The city of Cheyenne has offered the local firefighters’ union an option to keep extra pay for specialty roles like EMTs and paramedics.
But that offer requires union members to go without pay raises for the next two years.
Specialty pay has been a sticking point between the city and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 279 in recent bargaining sessions for a new labor contract.
The IAFF Local 279 is the union to which Cheyenne Fire and Rescue personnel belong.
In previous negotiating sessions, the city offered the union base pay increases that “ranged from 1.5 percent on the low end to approximately 6 percent on the high end” depending on rank and experience, according to city treasurer Lois Huff.
But those base pay increases came with a catch: a significant reduction in specialty pay rates.
The city’s proposed cuts to specialty pay, which provides union members extra pay for things like EMT and hazardous materials training and certification, would result in an overall average salary reduction of about 1 percent, according to union calculations.
During a four-hour negotiating session Wednesday evening, the union continued to resist specialty pay cuts.
“The fact of the matter is that in these negotiations, the firefighters need to be kept whole,” union vice president Kevin Reddy said.
The city’s proposal to cut specialty pay is particularly inappropriate, he added, because EMT and paramedic service call volumes have increased in recent years.
“If we were in the manufacturing sector, and demand for our products was increasing and people were buying more of our product, wouldn’t the labor (union) be justified in asking for a pay increase?”
Last year, there were “nearly 6,300 (calls for emergency medical services) where we put our hands on patients and provided EMS care,” Reddy said. “The backbone of these calls is the EMT and paramedic.”
City Attorney Dan White, who serves as a spokesman for the Cheyenne City Council during collective bargaining, provided the union with an offer Wednesday that allows firefighters to keep their specialty pay.
But that offer comes with a pretty steep price: The union would have to forgo pay increases and keep their current salaries for the next two fiscal years.
In other words, firefighters would be making the same amount of money as they are right now until fiscal year 2017 at the earliest.
The union made a counter offer Wednesday that would allow the firefighters to keep their specialty pay for the next two years, as well as receive an annual base pay increase of 2 percent.
Union President John Bertsch said if the city is willing to accept these terms, his “pen is ready” to sign a new labor contract immediately.
White said the council will “take the (union’s counter offer) under advisement.”
The parties must come to a contract agreement by next week. If they don’t, an independent arbitrator will be brought in to settle the matter.
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