Firefighter Archive

New Lenox Fights for Fair Treatment

    Shortly after SEIU Local 73 began our organizing efforts to sign up members of the New Lenox Fire Department, the employer entered into an agreement to contract out all the scheduled work the firefighters performed. The firefighters had their jobs reclassified from part time to paid on call and were given notice that schedule shifts were being eliminated after they had been certified by the Illinois Labor Relations Board.
    The district's Board of Trustees president has said that the district would no be using the paid on call members until the issues were cleared up. We do not know what issues he is refering too, but this statement alone indicates that this employer is extremely anti-union.
    The Local has decided to take a more aggressive stance since the administration of the district has yet to offer a counter proposal to our positioins on scheduling, wages, discipline, and the grievance procedure. We are demonstrating at each Board of Trusteees meeting until these matters are resolved. These meetings are regularly schedule on the third Monday of each month. Septmeber 15, 2008, will be our next demonstration. We will meet at 6PM and stay unil 7:30PM.

For pictures from the previous demonstration, click here.

Our demonstarations also caught the attention of the local paper, The New Lenox Patriot.

Westchester Firefighters Reach New Agreement after 17 Months

Our Westchester Firefighters came to terms on a new contract after seventeen months of negotiations. At issue, as with many of our employers, were significant modifications to the insurance plan governing our employees. The chapter held on to its position that we were willing to increase employee contribution toward insurance premiums to maintain the current coverage. The village sought to implement a new plan where family deductibles would increase from $600 to nearly $6000.

Obviously, our members stood on our position that the current benefits must be maintained and that in previous negotiations, higher wage increases were not pursued in order to maintain benefits. This insurance issue was the primary reason for the impasse being declared November of last year.

The village also rejected our proposal to grant a paramedic stipend to all members who are Illinois certified and perform the duties of a paramedic for the Westchester Fire Department. Previous contracts called for a stipend for all paramedics who had

re-certified prior to 1998 in order to perform all ambulance duty and eliminate the use of contracted paramedics. All work has been performed by our members since. The village has maintained that all members hired since would be required to become and maintain the paramedic license as a condition of continued employment. We stood on our proposal to grant a stipend to all medics regardless of the date of hire.

Wages were at issue as well, but the village agreed to accept our proposal on wages if we would also accept the insurance modifications.

Numerous negotiation sessions and membership meetings were held to clarify the members' position to the employer. Until the employer met with its insurance broker and decided upon a plan which was much similar to the previous one, both parties met again prior to referring the negotiations to interest arbitration and agreed to terms on a new agreement.

The new contract provides a number of improvements including, but not limited to: discipline to arbitration, a paramedic stipend to all medics, clarifying the compensatory time off schedule, moving the ten year longevity step into the wage schedule (to index the increases annually), providing clarification to vacation scheduling, and four percent wage increases annually for the four year term.

The Local was assisted by the law firm of Richard J Reimer and Associates. Thanks to the bargaining committee of Tom Botka, Dennis Keefe, and Joe Gerace.

Pleasantview Fire Agrees to Three Year Extension of Contract

The Pleasantview Firefighter/ Lieutenants and Captains chapters each reached terms to extend their contracts until July 2011. Wages will increase by 3.5 %, 3.5%, and 4% over the term of the agreement, also modifications were made to the Technical Rescue Team Stipend to increase the amount for members who have completed all five Tech levels.

The district also agreed to implement a longevity step of 20% above the previous base for members with over twenty years of service with the district.

I also want to thank Tom Murphy who has decided to retire as of this July. Tom has served as a Steward for over 20 years and worked for the Local in 2003. He will be surely missed for his leadership.

Wilmette Firefighters Reach Terms on New Three Year Agreement

Our Wilmette Firefighters' chapter recently ratified a new three year agreement with an effective date of May 13, 2008. The previous two contracts required the services of Arbitrators Briggs and Benn and numerous unfair labor practive charges filed at the Illinois Labor Relations Board. This agreement was reached without requiring any such actions.

At issue during the early stages of negotiations was a one half step wage increase. This increase was agreed to with the Wilmette Police Patrol Officers (IBT 714 and the Wilmette Fire Lieutenants who are not represented). The union maintained that our members were due the same based upon the historical "parity" with the police officers and internal comparability considerations per the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act.

After a couple difficult sessions, the village agreed to the one half step increase along with wage increases of 3.5% annual increases for each year of the agreement.

This chapter has been in negotiations, arbitration, and mediation for an initial or successor contract for seven and a half of the nine years we have represented them. The new three year agreement also guarantees that we will not be negotiating for a new contract for better than two years.