The firefighters Union

The Firefighters Union

Our firefighters local, Fishers Professional Firefighters and Drivers, local 4907, consists of just the firefighters hired here at Fishers Fire District. There is no union hall, shop or pool of union members to call upon when needed. It is just our eighteen firefighters, five lieutenants and one Driver/Station Maintainer. All civil service positions in Ontario County. Annually, we elect our peers to represent us. These offices are unpaid positions, and the firefighters holding these positions still attend to all their regular duties and shifts as an employee of the Fishers Fire District.

In the year 2009 our first four firefighters were hired. At the time the commission was dealing with declining numbers of responding volunteers, and a geographic district that does not furnish volunteer members (commercial buildings, industry and high income neighborhoods). The commission at the time also understood that they needed to do the right thing by their employees. Long time, highly dedicated, volunteer firefighter Robert Johnson, who has risen through the ranks all the way to district chief, and now a commissioner was a huge supporter of doing the right thing. In the years following the hire of the first four firefighters he was noted to encourage the commission to have a strong working relationship with the staff, and noted that to not have a union here, the District needed to continue respecting their staff. The firefighters understood this along with the fact that the District was experiencing growing pains. The District Chief at the time along with Mr. Johnson put together the first document for working conditions and benefits package. Everything was amicable.

Then came along commissioners Larry Howk and Galen Powers. Larry Howk tore up the first set of working conditions and benefits and re-wrote everything in his liking, asking for input, but accepting none. Howk then forced employees to sign this document, which had a clause that the District could change anything in the document at any time, without notice to the employee. The firefighters were hesitant, and tried to work out a solution, but Howk did not negotiate well. Then things intensified, Howk cornered the firefighters one at a time forcing them to sign the document. During one of these encounters a firefighter was told that another firefighter had “not signed the document and things are not looking good for him, you had better sign this if you want to keep your job”. It was also mentioned that “just leave if you don’t sign this, hundreds of other people want this job and they will sign it”. A firefighter reported this unprofessional and coercive behavior to Commission Chairman Galen Powers. However Powers joined the coercive actions instead of correcting them. The firefighters were also told they were on probation and needed to sign the document or risk their probation, even though -unbenounced to the firefighters- the commission had ended their probation some time before. The union was formed shortly thereafter in August of 2012. During the hire of a replacement firefighter, the commission barred said firefighter -as a condition of his hire -from being a charter member of the union. The firefighters continued to work without a contract for over a year, going through multiple renditions of new working terms. Agreements were made and then disregarded by the commission. Meanwhile the firefighters still had a vital job to perform while their fair treatment and compensation were in question. A very stressful situation for a person who risks a lot just in their normal duties. One firefighter said, after a call and in front of past chief Stromfied and the gathered crew, that Galen Powers disparaged the staff by saying “you just need one guy and a radio to call for mutual aid”.

One firefighter reports that at their previous, non-public safety job, the managers had been there for a long time, they were vetted and stable. But in an organization like a Fire District, the managers (commissioners) change every year, there is no vetting process, no qualifications requirement, no experience requirement, no interview or selection process to ensure the right person is fitted to the job. Instead the only legal requirements arn to not be a felon, to not be an arsonist and to win a popularity vote amongst your peers. Then, “once elected they can get their buddies elected, change people's lives and the service level provided (negative connotation) all while having no clue what’s going on. The actions of those individuals can be whatever they feel like, because there doesn’t seem to be a ton of accountability”. That’s the life of having to be an employee in public service. The union brings stability and balance to uncertainty. It brings some protections to our livelihood when the environment can be very much like a roller coaster ride.

At negotiations for the 2018 contract cycle the District approached the Union requesting terms that would stop firefighters from leaving the department as this was costing hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and experienced firefighters. The District lost five firefighters to departments with better working conditions during the period of the first contract ( >30% of the firefighters at the time with over 10 years of experience, not including their experience brought to the department). A contract was made that was comparable to other districts in the region, including stipulations to repay training costs if transferring to another department. This attenuated the hemorrhage of firefighters. For the first time, after losing eight firefighters to other departments the District began stabilizing its team of experience. That is until the coalition came along, right out of the gate vilifying firefighters, making absurd acquisitions, rallying the community - on false pretexts - against the firefighters and making threats to dissolve services and even the District in its entirety if they didn’t get what they wanted. Five more firefighters left to less stressful, more stable Districts with communities that actually support firefighters.

Our current union president says that maintaining safe working environments is the number one priority. A past president says “everything we have pushed for as far as maintaining staff, is all about maintaining experience and skill and to not constantly turn people over and have new people here all the time. Growing the staff has been all about the efficiency of the crews and the delivery of service to the community. Though people spin what we do to say we're just trying make more money or any of the other benefits out there, but the focus has always been the service that we’re delivering to the community” He adds “the push for minimum staffing has been to maintain people here so the community is getting the service they pay for”.

A firefighter says “I think most of the stuff we fight for, though it looks like we're fighting for ourselves, it's really trying to maintain a level of service to the community. Trying not to reduce staffing. Trying to make sure we have a minimum amount of people here each day. Trying not to bleed staff to other organizations, this way we can keep the people that have been here 5, 10, 15 years. They know the district, they know the equipment, they know the ins and outs and the target hazards and they're prepared to do the things they need to do. I think it's unfortunate that it's spun as if we are looking out for ourselves, and that's not really the case. We're trying to make this place a place where people want to be, and not lose guys like we did during our first contract when we lost 15 years of experience”. Sadly he adds “I got somebody working with me today”- through no fault of their own because they're new - “that counts as an active member on the truck, they can't even drive the truck,they can't run a pump, they pulled our hose line for the first time. The question last week was how do we get to Home Depot? That's not the level of service the union wants to provide”