Late in the day last Thursday, May 29th, Judge Starkey ruled that the UFA would be required to post a bond of $4 million in order to prevent the City from reducing the number of 5-man engine companies from 63 to 11. Because of this incredibly high bond, the UFA Executive Board found itself in a position that left us only one real choice--to not post the bond--which unfortunately would then allow the City to reduce the number of 5-man engine companies to the dangerously low number of 11.
The UFA still had the right to go forward with its legal cases in an attempt to first convince a court, and then an arbitrator, to overturn a provision in the 1996 Roster Manning Agreement. This would require 2 separate favorable rulings in court, and the deck seemed to be heavily stacked against us. In addition to these very high legal hurdles, we faced another major problem. The City's attorneys put us on notice that they intended to sue us for $1.5 million in damages, which it claims it would have saved if the UFA had never delayed the reductions. Although our labor attorney, Mike Axelrod, believed it would be difficult for the City to collect if we were unsuccessful in our lawsuits, this threat had to be seriously considered.
On Friday Steve Cassidy contacted a high ranking staffer in the Mayor's office and argued that the morale of the firefighters was at an all time low. Steve explained that he believed if the City reduced the number of 5-man engines to 11, it would likely result in serious injuries and/or deaths to civilians and possibly firefighters. He also made clear that this was on the heels of 6 firehouse closings, and at a time in history when the FDNY is trying to rebuild with so many new, young and inexperienced firefighters. This conversation started a process that began Friday and continued virtually non-stop until we reached an agreement with the City late Tuesday to avert the looming disaster of the FDNY having to operate with just 11 five-man engines (C-11).
The agreement will go into effect as soon as the Dept. can implement the changes. The agreement prevents the City from going to C-11 and instead requires they staff 40 engine companies with five firefighters. Medical leave (ML) is currently 8.54 %. This agreement requires it be reduced to 8.40% by October 1st. If ML is further reduced to 8% effective Jan 1, 2004, the manning level will be increased to C-45. The next target is 7.75% effective April 1, 2004. If we are at or below that number, the manning will be increased to C-50. The final target is 7.5% on July 1, 2004 and that would bring us back to our original C-60 (60 five-man engine companies).
The UFA believes that as we get farther away from the June 2002 closing of the WTC site, that the ML numbers will go down. The reason is because the many firefighters with serious WTC lung and other injuries that have recently retired will continue to be dropped from the Department's 365-day annualized percentage formula, which we are judged on per the 1996 Roster Staffing Agreement. If we are unable to meet the target numbers on the 4 designated dates, the Fire Commissioner has the right to reduce manning to any number between C-11 and C-60.
The UFA Executive Board remains hopeful that we can meet these targets largely because the numbers from June 2002 thru December 2002 were extremely high due to the long days of exposure for so many firefighters who worked at the site. We also believe that this was the best agreement we could get at this time--as the City was poised to imminently go to C-11. In addition to preventing the City from going to C-11, this agreement also does the following.
- It removes the threat of the City's law suit against the UFA for $1.5 million, as the City withdrew it as a part of this agreement.
- It adds a clause that says in the case of a 'terrorist attack or some other major disaster' both sides would meet to evaluate how the UFA medical leave numbers were affected by the incident. It is unfortunate that similar language was not included in the 1996 Roster Staffing Agreement.
- The Department agreed to a 6-month pilot program, to begin immediately, that would require it to dispatch a minimum of 2 Engines and 1 Ladder on any single source report of a structural fire. The UFA has been trying to get the Department to agree to this for a long time. We believe this is a safety issue and there is no reason not to immediately send at least 2 engines to every single source report of a structural fire.
This agreement was reached without giving up anything other than a few pending lawsuits that the Executive Board, and its legal counsel, believe the UFA had virtually no chance of winning. Although we are disgusted that the Department continued to use 9-11 ML against firefighters in its year-to-date calculations, this agreement will provide increased safety for 29 additional engine companies immediately, and will gradually increase that number until we get back to C-60. Your entire Executive Board worked tirelessly together for several days to make this happen. Their hard work, dedication and thoughtful insight was instrumental in this accomplishment. Our vote to accept this agreement was unanimous. The entire Board will be available to answer any questions you have.
Please remember to operate as safely as you possibly can--and never forget--don't get injured speeding to an alarm. You are unable to help others if you are involved in an accident. Slow down. We didn't start the fire, but when we get there we will put it out. STAY SAFE!
