WITH MONTREAL, QUEBEC’s, HOCKEY TEAM  long gone from the playoff scene, the Fire Department labor/management fingerpointing is going in a new direction this week.

Working without a contract for 17 months and a contentious negotiating program, the FF’s union is deflecting the latest problem onto City Hall.

Since the 22 departments within the greater Montreal limits were merged into one department 6 years ago, there have been NO fire-safety inspections of any buildings in the city.

“It’s worrying because there are no real objectives or goals for inspecting buildings in Montreal,” the city’s auditor-general Michel Doyon said at a news conference to present his findings. Inspections would ensure buildings have unobstructed fire exits and all necessary smoke detectors, sprinklers and extinguishers, and that flammable products are stored properly, he said.

Fire inspectors issued no tickets to building owners for safety violations from 2003 to 2006 after issuing 497 in 2002.  The FF’s union claims that the department is short 500  people, so there are not enough to fulfill the inspection program.

A just-released report from the city’s auditor-general also disclosed that of the 772 City employees that earned over $100,000 last year, nearly a third of them, 202 work for the fire department.  And most of them are fire captains working under the labor contract.

The crux of the problem is the mandated method of calling back captains at overtime pay to fill a vacancy instead of using on-duty firefighters to fill in as a detail assignment.  The union says it has been trying to get the City to adopt the more reasonable method  of fill-ins, but the City claims that they can’t because of a pending grievance that was filed nearly two years ago (!) and hasn’t yet been solved.

Read the full report in today’s Montreal Gazette HERE.

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