It has nothing to do with Mrs. Smith …

. . . and everything to do with local political power

A guaranteed groaner when teaching a fire officer course is to talk about “Mrs. Smith” or The Phoenix Way.  Firefighters are quick to point out that they are not in a retail trade. Users of 9-1-1 are called victims or patients, not customers.

With Fire Chiefs Clack and Rubin embracing Brunacini customer service, a brief search on TheWatchDesk will provide vigorous and emotional responses from city firefighters:  Baltimore example, Washington example.

DCFEMS Community Service Unit – Go HERE to read Vito Maggiolo’s dcfd.com article

The Phoenix Way does not travel well outside the Valley of the Sun.  It makes no difference if the plan was lifted from the PFD website out-of-context or implemented by a retired Phoenix command officer at a new fire department.

But in the city where it started, it is protecting firefighter jobs.  There were two significant pressures in Phoenix that provide an example of carbon transformed into a diamond.

PRO-BUSINESS WITH A BULLET

Phoenix public safety unions won the right to collective bargaining in the early 1980s. One result of this political activism was a firefighter-initiated referendum to replace the at-large city council system with single member district elections. This eroded the ability of business leaders to influence city operations.

Phoenix is lead by old-school Republican conservatives. It is the home of two senators who were presidential candidates, Barry Goldwater and John McCain. In the 1980s and 1990s the police chief functioned as a political operative, using his law enforcement authority to investigate and harass political foes. (HERE)

Just before the 1982 single-member district referendum vote occured, more than a dozen firefighters, including the union president, were arrested on cocaine charges. Duane Pell, a former city council member and IAFF Local 493 leader, talked about this incident in a 1993 Phoenix New Times article.

“The headlines were firefighters involved in major drug trafficking, a system of drug trafficking that, because of the convenient location of fire stations throughout the city, made perfect locations for firefighters to distribute cocaine,” says Pell, describing the allegations. Most of the firefighters were cleared of criminal charges and no major drug ring was ever found.

This arrest started a decade of intimidation and harassment of the union president. Eleven years after the unfounded cocaine arrest, IAFF Local 493 President Pat Cantelme filed a $1 million lawsuit accusing the police chief, county attorney and others of violating his civil rights.  (HERE)

WE COULD ALWAYS CONTRACT WITH RURAL-METRO

During this time Scottsdale-based Rural-Metro was a successful for-profit contract fire protection corporation.  Imagine working every day in a city that is hostile to organized labor and points to a neighboring private corporation when things get dificult.  For the metro Washington readers, it would be as if McLean/Tysons, Bethesda/Chevy-Chase, Inner Harbor or Georgetown/West End were protected by a for-profit fire department.

APPLYING NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (NLRB) TECHNIQUES

Phoenix started the Labor/Management effort in 1984 using a NLRB Relationship By Objectives (RBO) procedure . RBO is recommended when labor and management are at an impasse. The RBO process created The Phoenix Way, The Big Five and “Be Nice.”

Be Nice covers both the internal (firefighter) and external (Mrs. Smith) customer. Within the department there was a tremendous effort to encourage, reinforce and reward nice behavior.  It was a recurrent feature within their internal publications and videos, retelling customer service stories and celebrating random acts of kindness.

During a discussion of organizational structure, a PFD captain identified a senior staffer as “the Deputy Chief for Being Nice.” For a municipality involved in hard-ball politics, each positive firefighter/civilian encounter increased citizen support of the department.

BE NICE PRODUCES VOTER SUPPORT

Voters passed Proposition 1 in a September 11, 2007 election.  Proposition 1 hikes the sales tax 0.2 percent, which will be used to hire 500 new police officers and 100 new firefighters within the next two years. (source – Goldwater Institute)

During an October 2008 budget work session, the Associated Press reported “… a majority of the City Council expressed support for increasing the public-safety budget by $10 million, or about 1.3 percent, while cutting the other departments by 25 percent to 45 percent.”

PROPOSED FY 2010 BUDGET

With a budget deficit approaching $270 million – a 22% reduction in projected revenue - city agencies were directed to provide budgets reflecting a 30% reduction of expenditures. Public safety was directed to provide a 15% reduction.  Courts, police and fire account for 68% of the city expenditures.

The proposed FY2010 budget released last week calls for elimination of 1,300 of the exising 14,000 city jobs.  (HERE)  This reduction is on top of a $90 million budget cut in early 2008.

NONE of the 1,588 firefighter postions were eliminated in the proposed city budget. The department will be losing some of their 350 civilian employees and will run no recruit schools in 2009.  The fire department will reduce it’s FY10 budget by 7.5%. (HERE),

“Seventy percent of our general fund goes to first responders,” said Councilman Michael Nowakowski. “You can’t cut from police and fire because it’s a need. Our city is growing and we need officers on the street and firefighters and paramedics out there to protect our families.”

This is a far cry from the city council sentiments in the 1990s, when candidates ran against public safety labor and their featherbedded jobs.  Maybe being nice is not just a warm and fuzzy sentiment.

Mike “Fossilmedic” Ward
Diamond or Dust budget series

Lacey, M. (1992, December 30). The Pursuit of Pat Cantelme. Phoenix New Times.
Pasztor, D. (1993, February 3). Arizona’s Own J. Edgar Hoover. Phoenix New Times.
Pasztor, D. (1993, March 3). Firefighter Fires Back: Union Chief Alleges Abuse of Power by Ortega, Romley, others. Phoenix New Times.
Wong, S. (2008, December 26) Phoenix’s budget gap grows bigger The Arizona Republic.
Berry, J. (2009, January 01) Phoenix unveils $270 million in cuts. The Arizona Republic
Ferraresi, M. (2009, January 01) Phoenix police, fire asked to cut costs. The Arizona Republic.

Also on FireGeezer…

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• LAFD restructure protest planned today – May 13, 2011
• Is Minneapolis Fire still boarding up buildings? – October 13, 2011
• City Council approves LAFD redeployment 12-2 – May 19, 2011