Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
An arbitration decision in Pennsylvania awarded firefighters the right to live outside the community. But the decision is being criticized by the firefighters’ union more for what it failed to do than what it actually did.
A three arbitrator panel handling the Wilkes Barre interest arbitration issued its ruling on February 1, 2011, awarding IAFF Local 104 two 3% raises effective January 1, 2011 and January 1, 2012, and granting personnel permission to live within a 13.5 mile radius of fire department headquarters effective January 1, 2012.
The decision also eliminated parity pay with police, eliminated a no-layoff provision, imposed mandatory drug and alcohol testing, and increased the health care co-share for firefighters by 8%.
The union’s labor arbitrator, Thomas W. Jennings, refused to sign the decision and instead wrote a scathing dissenting opinion criticizing the panel for ignoring uncontradicted evidence submitted at the hearing on the need to increase staffing for reasons of firefighter safety. Staffing had been reduced from 14 to 12 in the last year due to budget concerns.
Here are copies of the decision and the dissent.
