THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS (IAFF) has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Montgomery, Alabama, Mayor Bobby Bright and other city and fire department officials, to obtain relief from unlawful retaliatory actions.

The IAFF issued a press release today announcing that they have amended the suit to include another plaintiff who has also been retaliated against because of his union membership.

The statement reads, in part:

Toney D. Stephens was added as a co-plaintiff in an Amended Complaint filed September 25 with the Federal District Court in Montgomery as part of a federal court suit filed September 5 on behalf of Ronnie Bozeman Jr., president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1444.

Stephens has been a target of defendants named in the suit because he joined the fire fighters’ association and resisted coercion by fire department officials to make a cash contribution to the Public Safety Insurance Fund. Stephens then was transferred and told that he should have contributed to the fund. Ultimately, Stephens was suspended without pay for 29 days. 

Fire Chief Milford Jordan indicated that Stephens and other members of Local 1444 would be better off if they got out of the labor association. Jordan also has told African-American fire fighters in the fire department that they should drop out of the fire fighters’ association because their membership in it would hurt their careers in the department.

There’s more.  Read the entire press statement HERE.

GARY, INDIANA, THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS who charge their citizens a monthly fee for fire hydrant rental, had just found a friendly judge to reverse the latest legal reverse addressing the fire department staffing policy.

The union contract calls for a minimum of 4 firefighters on each engine and truck.  But the contract expired four years ago and the city refuses to negotiate a new one.  In order to balance their massive budgetary shortfall, the city attempted to reduce staffing to 2 on each unit claiming that the contract is no longer valid.

After taking the city to court, the Local won a judgement saying that the contract remains in effect until a new one is ratified.  Meanwhile, the city has laid off so many firefighters that they only have 16 per shift remaining (down from 77).  Their more-than-100,000 residents are now being covered by three engines and one truck that are housed in four separate stations.

Gary Truck Co. 1 thru 4

Monday the same judge ruled that the expired contract was no longer valid and told the city that they can do whatever they want.  The mayor wants to reduce minimum staffing to three per unit.  So that means they will now be able to operate 5 companies.  Their allotted strength, if it was to be followed, is 13 engines, 4 trucks and one heavy rescue.  The ball’s back in the Union’s court now.  Last Friday they won a ruling in another court that orders the city to restore full wages and manpower to the fire department.

Firegeezer hopes that somebody can send us a scorecard.

The Gary Post-Tribune has the latest STORY.
Gary Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

A PEABODY, MASSACHUSETTS, FIREFIGHTER, John Brophy was fired 3 years ago after sleeping through an emergency medical call. 

After working his way through the appeals process, he won his job back in March of this year.  One of the conditions of his re-employment was that he had to pass a physical exam and a drug test.  (During his first appeal nearly two years ago, Brophy failed a drug test.  Salem News ARTICLE).  When Brophy refused to take either of them, the mayor fired him again in May.  And again, Brophy appealed.

This past week a Superior Court judge dismissed Brophy’s lawsuit against the city of Peabody and lifted an injunction preventing the city from disciplining Brophy.

The Boston Herald has the REPORT.

NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, is threatening to “temporarily” close up to 30 fire stations during the upcoming months which include their usual wildfire season.

The state government has bungled the budget to the point where they have such a huge deficit that they have to take drastic measures to cut spending.

Current practices in stations that are manned by “retained” firefighters (paid-on-call vols.) are kept up to minimum staffing by using regular FF’s on overtime to fill vacant slots.  The new proposal calls for stations that are short-staffed to be taken out of service for the remainder of the shift instead of using overtime pay to keep them open.

The Sydney Morning Herald has the full STORY.

AN ONTARIO, CANADA, VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER was given his walking papers Tuesday because of a Letter-to-the-Editor he wrote to the Peterborough Examiner.

The letter, which was published on Aug. 14, addressed the problem of ambulances getting backed up at hospitals because of slow admissions.

Mike McKinney was a member of the Douro-Dummer Fire Department and when he signed his name to the letter he included that information below his signature.  Apparently the town council interpreted that as being advanced as an official declaration.  At a closed-hearing Tuesday night they summarily dismissed McKinney from the fire department where he has been member for 10 years.

“I thought I was writing as a private citizen and I didn’t need permission,” McKinney said. “That letter had nothing to do with my fire chief.”

Read the full story in the Examiner HERE.
Douro Dummer Fire Dept. WEBPAGE.

NEW YORK CITY FIREFIGHTERS HAVE THE HIGHEST rate of absenteeism for sick/injury leave of any city agency. 

A recent management report done for the mayor’s office found that the FDNY is averaging about 18 days per year per employee.  These figures are including injury leave attained on the job.

“It’s a dangerous job and the injuries are quite severe, and that skews the numbers,” said Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon, noting that a firefighter who broke both of his ankles in a Brooklyn blaze Thursday will be out all year.

The next-highest group was FDNY civilians which includes the EMT’s and Paramedics.  Police officers were several slots farther down the list with just under 10 days off annually. 

Coming in #3 was the sanitation department (trash collectors) with 14 absences per employee.  Sanitation officials say that their rate is high because of “the strenuous job of working in all kinds of weather conditions, day and night, and getting stuck by needles, struck by cars and hit by items that pop out of the hopper.”

The healthiest bunch of city workers?  Parks Dept. employees are averaging 5 days off per year.  Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe credits their good record due to “happy work.”  (not making this up….Ed.)

Read the full story in The Daily News HERE.

THE BUCKEYE, ARIZONA, FIRE DEPARTMENT has an opening for a fire marshal.  Seeing the writing on the wall, the former fire marshal Manny DeAnda resigned two weeks after being put on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation centered on misconduct witnessed by several town employees.

Allegations of sexual harassment include accusations that he performed lap dances at work on a female employee against her wishes.  According to the Arizona Republic,

The incident took place June 3 in the offices of the Community Development Department. After learning about a female worker’s birthday, DeAnda “came over to me and spun me around in my chair and straddled me and began to do a lap dance on me,” the woman told Buckeye human resources officials Aug. 13, after debating whether to come forward. 

“I was embarrassed and horrified . . . and I put my head in my hands to hide my embarrassment,” she said.  “In response to the commotion that it caused in the office, he (DeAnda) showed another person what he had done by repeating the act. He spun me around again and straddled me and began another dance on me.” 

“I never said anything about him dancing on me because I thought he was our new boss,” the woman said.

The Buckeye Fire Chief Bob Costello will take on the duties of the fire marshal until one can be appointed.

Read the full story in the Arizona Republic HERE.
Buckeye Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

EAST POINT, GEORGIA, IS A CITY THAT IS continually embarrassed by its own actions.  This week’s foo-faw comes as the Mayor is trying to hand out a 5-day suspension to Fire Chief Rosemary Cloud.  She has hired a lawyer to fight it and he is taking the dispute public.

Chief Rosemary Cloud

George O. Lawson, her attorney, says that the five-day suspension without pay, which was issued Sept. 2, is “frivolous.”   The mayor’s office says that she was suspended for being unwilling to make budget cuts and for granting media interviews.  Lawson points out that Chief Cloud did make recommendations for budget cuts and that the city has not explained what media interviews she improperly gave.

She is still working while she awaits an appeal hearing on the matter.  The city has not yet scheduled one.

East Point made the news recently when they shut down two of the city’s five fire stations - 40% of their coverage - and laid off 48 firefighters to make up for a $5 million budget gap.  The city was already failing to meet national standards for response times and the chief said it was too early to determine what impact the layoffs would have on response times.

That last response to a question from the Atlanta newspaper may be what sparked the suspension.  It appears that the city council didn’t want bad news to leak out to the taxpayers.

This past Sunday when the FD tried to fight a fire in a vacant apartment building, the firefighters tried five different hydrants before they could get enough water to charge a hose line.  The first working hydrant they were able to use was a quarter-mile away.

The city has a long-standing problem with inadequate flows from its hydrants.  The mayor told the Journal-Constitution  “The city of East Point has an older [water and sewer] system.  A lot of these lines have been in the ground 50, 60, dare I say, 100 years.”

The city-that-fails-to-function is also under a consent decree with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to improve its sewer system, with a deadline of 2010 to complete most of the work.

Mayor Joseph Macon

The full article from the Journal-Constitution is HERE.
The story on the hydrant problem at the apartment fire is HERE.

On its website, the City claims that “East Point is the crown jewel of the suburban metropolitan Atlanta area. The City of East Point offers the amenities of a large city with the safety, convenience, friendliness and charm of a small town. One of the safest and most economical areas to reside and work, East Point has award-winning public safety divisions including outstanding Police and Fire Departments.”