By Fran Spielman
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
CHICAGO — Despite a $217.7 million budget shortfall, Chicago firefighters are demanding a 26 percent pay raise over four years, a $350-a-month meal and vehicle allowance and a $3,500-a-year residency stipend to compensate them for being forced to live in the city.
Resurrecting the volatile staffing issue that triggered a bitter 1980 firefighters strike, Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2 also is demanding no fewer than five employees on every piece of fire apparatus whenever temperatures dip below 20 degrees or rise above 90.
The same five-employee minimum would apply when the Homeland Security Department raises the nation’s threat level to red.
City Hall would also be prohibited from summoning outside fire or emergency medical services until “all ancillary equipment” and rehiring available from within the Chicago Fire Department has been exhausted.
On the always-volatile issue of promotional testing, Local 2 is demanding that the city eliminate oral exams and make future promotions a split decision: Fifty percent would be based on results of written exams. Fifty percent would be based on seniority.
The union demands come just three days after Mayor Daley released a preliminary 2008 budget with the second-highest shortfall in a decade: $217.7 million.
Acting union President Tom Ryan said he’s well aware of the financial squeeze that has Chicagoans bracing for a heavy dose of post-election tax increases. But, he said, Chicago’s 4,600 firefighters and paramedics have legitimate demands.
“It’s expensive to live in this city. We still have bills to pay. I understand these are trying times. But that does not outweigh the needs of my membership,” Ryan said.
Ryan refused to discuss the demands in detail, honoring a request from the city not to negotiate in public. But, he said, “These are just preliminary requests just to get the ball rolling. We may be adding some in the future.”
Jim Franczek, the city’s chief labor negotiator, could not be reached for comment, nor could deputy corporation counsel David Johnson.
The last time Local 2 negotiated a new, four-year deal, firefighters gave up so much in exchange for their 16 percent pay raise, the backlash ultimately cost union President Jim McNally his job.