Firefighters Contract derailed

A "tentative agreement" on a new contract between the city and the Laconia Professional Firefighters Association (LPFA), Local 1153 was derailed when the rand-and-file firefighters conditioned their approval of its terms on the city's acceptance of their demand for 24-hour work day schedule. Contract talks have been at an impasse since the last agreement expired on June 30, 2004.

Meeting on Sunday evening, the LPFA endorsed the compensation and benefits packages negotiated between union representatives and city officials last week, but made their agreement contingent on adoption of a 24-hour work day. On the advice of legal counsel, Mayor Mark Fraser told the City Council that the letter from the LPFA proposing that the 24-hour work schedule to the agreement amounted to rejecting that agreement. The council, he said, could vote either to ratify or to reject the agreement, but not to amend it by acceding to the LPFA's request.

At the same time, City Manager Eileen Cabanel, again following the advice of legal council, explained that although the council must ratify the monetary provisions of the contract, its authority did not extend to the work schedule, which is negotiated by the city manager.

The council then voted unanimously to ratify the agreement signed last week, which did not include the 24-hour work day, putting the ball in the LPFA's court. Dave French, president of the LPFA, said afterwards that "we're still working on this," adding that the 24-hour work day remained the lone outstanding issue.

The LPFA included the 24-work day as part of their original bargaining position. In place of the current schedule of two 11-hour days (7 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and two 13-hour nights (6 p.m. to 7 a.m.), firefighters asked for an eight day cycle of 24-hours on duty, 24-hours off and 24-hours on followed by five days off. The union calculated that adjusting the work schedule would reduce the cost of overtime by as much as $2,000 a month.

Last September, a factfinder/mediator acknowledged that Fire Chief Ken Erickson expressed misgivings about the proposed 24-hour work day, but nevertheless recommended that it be adopted on a trial basis for one year. Since then the LPFA has modified its proposal for a 24-hour work day to one supported by the fire chief. Under the plan on the table, firefighters would continue to work an eight day cycle, beginning with 24-hours on duty, 48-hours off, 24-hours on followed by four days off. Erickson described it as "a compression of the regular shifts," adding that "I've always supported this schedule.

The compensation and benefits packages of the agreement match those accepted earlier by the Laconia Administrative and technical Employees, Chapter 69, of the State Employees Association (SEA) of New Hampshire and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ( AFSCME), Council 93.

The tentative agreement included one cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 2.5-percent in 2004 (the first year of the contract), retroactive to May 1, and another of 5.25-percent in 2005, but none in 2006, the third and final year of the agreement. Originally the city offered COLAs averaging 2.5-percent a year over the life of the contract.

Like the contracts accepted by the SEA and AFSCME, the tentative agreement with the LPFA would provide that all employees would contribute five-percent of the cost of health insurance premiums, including those with the single person, who paid nothing under the prior contract. The agreement would replace the prescription medication program with its popular $1 mail-in option, which provided a 90-day supply of any drug for $1, with higher co-pays. In the first two years, co-pays would be $5 for generic drugs, $15 for preferred drugs and $25 for brand name drugs and in the third year would rise to $10, $20 and $30 under the so-called modified prescription benefit, which is one of the essential parameters of the city's bargaining position.