Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
It is an issue that firefighters and politicians can never seem to agree on: should officers be in the same bargaining unit as firefighters. That is the issue in Columbia County, Florida as the newly formed IAFF Local 4895 seeks to block the county’s efforts to include lieutenants in their bargaining unit.
Local 4895 was created on April 2, 2012, following a successful signature drive. The county then requested that a hearing officer from the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission who was assigned to handle the initial bargaining unit certification, find that lieutenants share a community of interest with the firefighters sufficient for both to be in the same bargaining unit. The county further argued that having two unions would cause “unnecessary fragmentation” of the workplace. There are 25 firefighter/drivers in the bargaining unit presently, while there are five lieutenants.
The union claims the county gave the hearing officer, Suzanne Choppin, an inaccurate position description for lieutenants, one devoid of any supervisory responsibility. The union submitted a job description from 2008 that includes the following:
serves as a role model for subordinates; responsible for discipline within the assigned station and shift; serves as a liaison between subordinates and upper levels of management; listen to problems; assess training needs; interpret and administer department rules, regulations, and guidelines; train subordinates; conduct performance evaluations on subordinates and delegate assignments to subordinates.
The hearing officer has 45 days to rule on the county’s request. Here is more on the story.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that in many jurisdictions the firefighters’ union wants to include officers, while management seeks to block the officers from joining. What doesn’t seem to change no matter where you go… is the fact that one side wants the opposite of what the other wants.
