By Thomas J. Prohaska
The Buffalo News
LOCKPORT, N.Y. — The firefighters’ union and the city have agreed on a new contract, the union president said Monday.
No, they haven’t, Mayor Michael W. Tucker said.
And the years-long hostility between City Hall and the Lockport Professional Fire Fighters Association continues.
Randall Parker, union president, issued a news release over the weekend announcing that the union members voted Friday night to approve a new five-year contract, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2008.
He said it pegs minimum staffing at 10 firefighters per shift, with the union agreeing to allow a maximum of three men per platoon to be off work on any given day. The current rule allows four off per day.
But Tucker said the city won’t make that deal.
“In the current contract, there’s no actual numbers,” Tucker said, referring to the agreement that expired at the end of 2007. “I think we’d be hesitant to put any actual numbers in there, because that’s what we’d be committed to.”
At present, the city is operating the Fire Department with a minimum staffing level of nine firefighters per shift. The department has four platoons, but uses only two per day. One shift each day is 14 hours, and the other is 10 hours.
Three platoons have 12 men and the fourth has 11. If too many men are off on a given day to make nine workers, firefighters from other platoons are called in and paid time-and-a-half for the entire shift.
A state arbitrator ruled last month in a union grievance over minimum staffing that the city must have 10 men per shift for firefighters’ safety.
With 10 men on and a maximum of four men off, Fire Chief Thomas J. Passuite said the city would have to hire nine additional firefighters, costing $405,000 a year in pay and benefits, or cover an overtime tab he estimated at $600,000 a year.
Tucker said the city doesn’t want to do either, and he announced Oct. 21 that the city will go to court to try to overturn the arbitrator’s binding ruling.
Parker said that was the same day union leaders and city negotiators David E. Blackley, the deputy corporation counsel, and Richard P. Mullaney, the city clerk and budget director, met all day with Greg Poland, a state mediator.
The result was the “10-and-three” deal that Parker said the union has ratified.
“I thought we had a good deal when we left the table,” Parker said.
The mayor agreed it would be cheaper than complying with the arbitrator’s ruling, which a contract would supersede.
“We might have to hire one [firefighter] to balance the shifts. If it was done correctly, [10 on and three off] would save us on overtime. I can’t deny that,” Tucker said.
But in a closed session Wednesday, the Common Council decided to turn down the deal.
“Blackley and Mullaney signed with the mediator pending Council approval,” the mayor said. “We’re going forward with our [court] challenge.”
“As soon as we go to court, the judge will say, ’10 and four,’ ” Parker predicted. “Our guys are willing to do 10 and three. It’s no cost to the city.”
But the mayor said the city won’t commit to a staffing level. “You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future,” Tucker said.
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