Pay-parity emails fuel firefighters’ court battle
File Photo
The latest snag in the longest contract impasse in Canadian firefighting history revolves around 19 internal documents about a city report recommending London firefighters get paid less than police.
Sources familiar with the protracted arbitration case tell The Free Press city bureaucrats are going to court to block an arbitrator’s order they hand over to the firefighters’ union the 19 documents — likely emails — linked to an expert report calling for an end to pay parity for firefighters and police, and recommending the former make about seven per cent less.
That raises two obvious questions:
- What’s in the documents that city officials don’t want handed over?
- What will it cost taxpayers for city hall to wage that “judicial review”? (One legal estimate pegs the price at up to $50,000).
The details uncover another layer of the contract talks — already six years old — and further suggest a lack of trust, at best, between city hall and the London Professional Fire Fighters Association (LPFFA).
It’s also another flashpoint for critics of city hall management and its aversion to transparency.
Sources say the report backing city hall’s push to end fire-police parity, written by an outside expert named Sandra Hayden, was a key focal point for the firefighters’ association: it wanted internal communications related to its creation.
Nineteen such documents were found. A source says city hall cited solicitor/client privilege to prevent the handover — but the arbitrator ruled that because a city official and their lawyer included Hayden on the emails, the privilege was waived.
That prompted what city hall’s top manager, Art Zuidema, has called a “judicial review” of the “appropriateness of the request.”
City officials couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
Jason Timlick, head of the firefighters’ union, declined to discuss the matter, citing the fact it’s still before an arbitrator.
How long until those hearings resume, however, is unclear. City hall’s decision to drag it into the courts — a “very rare” step during arbitration, one expert says — delays things indefinitely.
London firefighters, who cannot strike, have been working without a contract since 2010. It’s believed this is the longest contract negotiation in the history of Canadian firefighting.
But city hall’s obvious commitment to changing London’s fire contract is not without public support as emergency-service spending skyrockets.
At the 2010 rate (their last contract), a first-class firefighter after four years makes $85,503. The association wants a four-year pact (retroactive) that by 2014 would have raised that pay to $93,207.
Scores of London firefighters also routinely appear on the annual “sunshine list” of public workers making more than $100,000, drawing taxpayers’ ire. That’s in part the result of overtime racked up due to what the union calls city hall’s intentional understaffing of the fire department.
At the helm of the city hall bureaucracy pushing for contract concessions are Veronica McAlea Major, London’s human resources boss, and Zuidema. But their bosses are London’s 15-person city council.
One of them, Coun. Virginia Ridley, has spoken out recently about the protracted contract fight. She offered a more detailed view in a blog post published Tuesday.
“My opinion is that I am not OK with the fact we have employees who are without a contract,” she wrote. “My opinion is that every single one of our employees should feel respected and valued for the work that they do for our city.”
[email protected]
twitter.com/patatLFPress
Source: Emails fuel firefighters’ court battle | The London Free Press
Pay-parity emails fuel firefighters’ court battle
File Photo
The latest snag in the longest contract impasse in Canadian firefighting history revolves around 19 internal documents about a city report recommending London firefighters get paid less than police.
Sources familiar with the protracted arbitration case tell The Free Press city bureaucrats are going to court to block an arbitrator’s order they hand over to the firefighters’ union the 19 documents — likely emails — linked to an expert report calling for an end to pay parity for firefighters and police, and recommending the former make about seven per cent less.
That raises two obvious questions:
- What’s in the documents that city officials don’t want handed over?
- What will it cost taxpayers for city hall to wage that “judicial review”? (One legal estimate pegs the price at up to $50,000).
The details uncover another layer of the contract talks — already six years old — and further suggest a lack of trust, at best, between city hall and the London Professional Fire Fighters Association (LPFFA).
It’s also another flashpoint for critics of city hall management and its aversion to transparency.
Sources say the report backing city hall’s push to end fire-police parity, written by an outside expert named Sandra Hayden, was a key focal point for the firefighters’ association: it wanted internal communications related to its creation.
Nineteen such documents were found. A source says city hall cited solicitor/client privilege to prevent the handover — but the arbitrator ruled that because a city official and their lawyer included Hayden on the emails, the privilege was waived.
That prompted what city hall’s top manager, Art Zuidema, has called a “judicial review” of the “appropriateness of the request.”
City officials couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
Jason Timlick, head of the firefighters’ union, declined to discuss the matter, citing the fact it’s still before an arbitrator.
How long until those hearings resume, however, is unclear. City hall’s decision to drag it into the courts — a “very rare” step during arbitration, one expert says — delays things indefinitely.
London firefighters, who cannot strike, have been working without a contract since 2010. It’s believed this is the longest contract negotiation in the history of Canadian firefighting.
But city hall’s obvious commitment to changing London’s fire contract is not without public support as emergency-service spending skyrockets.
At the 2010 rate (their last contract), a first-class firefighter after four years makes $85,503. The association wants a four-year pact (retroactive) that by 2014 would have raised that pay to $93,207.
Scores of London firefighters also routinely appear on the annual “sunshine list” of public workers making more than $100,000, drawing taxpayers’ ire. That’s in part the result of overtime racked up due to what the union calls city hall’s intentional understaffing of the fire department.
At the helm of the city hall bureaucracy pushing for contract concessions are Veronica McAlea Major, London’s human resources boss, and Zuidema. But their bosses are London’s 15-person city council.
One of them, Coun. Virginia Ridley, has spoken out recently about the protracted contract fight. She offered a more detailed view in a blog post published Tuesday.
“My opinion is that I am not OK with the fact we have employees who are without a contract,” she wrote. “My opinion is that every single one of our employees should feel respected and valued for the work that they do for our city.”
[email protected]
twitter.com/patatLFPress
Source: Emails fuel firefighters’ court battle | The London Free Press
