Firefighters get paid to negotiate for new contract

Clark County has been wrangling with the firefighters union for months over how much pay and benefits the union should give up in the next labor contract to help the county with its budget problems.

But as the two sides negotiate about how to save money and county jobs, union officials are being paid with tax dollars to bargain.

A clause in the firefighters’ contract calls for up to five union negotiators to get a “reasonable” amount of paid time to bargain.

Union leaders are firefighters, so their colleagues must fill in for them whenever bargaining sessions fall on their scheduled workdays. Because of the Fire Department’s tight staffing, the co-workers are paid overtime to substitute.

The county is looking to trim costs wherever it can to avoid adding to its layoff count expected to reach almost 300 by early July. Even with these job cuts, the county still must close a $20 million budget gap.

The slumping economy has caused tax revenues to plummet to their lowest level since 2006, pushing the county’s shortfall to $138 million earlier this year. As a stopgap, officials pulled money from capital projects and a reserve fund and now seek a more long-term fix by further reducing labor costs.

County firefighters averaged $180,000 in wages and benefits last year.

A couple of county commissioners objected to what they described as union leaders getting paid with tax dollars to bargain against taxpayers in this economic climate.

“I think it’s an embarrassment to everybody involved,” said Commissioner Steve Sisolak, a frequent critic of firefighters’ compensation. “Not only do we pay their wages, we pay overtime.”

At least when firefighters do the annual “boot drive” for the Muscular Dystrophy Association on the clock, they’re raising funds for a charitable cause, whereas this is purely self-serving, Sisolak said. He also has criticized firefighters for participating in the boot drive on county time.

DIFFERING OPINIONS

In an e-mail, Ryan Beaman, head of the county firefighters union, defended the practice of the county paying negotiators, comparing it to the fire chief being paid for his assignments.

Negotiators must deal with a contract that has 120 pages and 31,000 words detailing the firefighters’ duties, Beaman wrote.

“The ongoing negotiations for the firefighters’ contracts are extremely complex and detailed,” said Beaman, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 1908. “It’s interesting that when the broadest range of public safety issues are on the table, Commissioner Sisolak’s views would be so narrow.”

Union representatives are paid for the hours they spend at the table and not an entire 24-hour shift, Beaman said. Hourly pay helps the union to accommodate county managers’ schedules, he said, adding that the managers don’t want to meet after 5 p.m. or on weekends.

But Sisolak contends that if union leaders are paid hourly wages to negotiate, they have less reason to reach an agreement quickly.

“It’s in their interest to drag it on,” he said.

The firefighters union and the county met 30 times between March 2006 and January 2007 to forge the current four-year contract, which will expire June 30. Bargaining ran more than six months past the previous contract’s expiration.

The two sides have met 12 times so far this year . Negotiations are expected to be more tense than four years ago because of the county’s more dire financial condition, increasing the chance of prolonged talks.

DOING THE MATH

Sisolak said he doesn’t know how long bargaining sessions last or what goes on in the meetings. Strict rules prevent the bargaining teams from disclosing anything discussed.

However, Beaman said the contract calls for a minimum of four hours per session. And a source familiar with firefighter negotiations say the typical session goes about five hours.

That means the union’s five-person team racked up as many as 750 hours in 2006 and 300 hours so far this year. County data shows that union representatives tend to be engineers and fire captains, putting them at a higher pay grade than regular firefighters.

Based on their average hourly wages, those negotiators would’ve been paid about $21,000 in 2006 and $9,500 so far this year. When you include the overtime that their colleagues would’ve received to fill in for them, the total jumps to about $52,000 in 2006 and $24,000 this year.

And negotiations are only part of a the union’s cost to the county.

Union representatives logged 2,204 paid hours for labor activities in 2006 and 904 hours as of June 8 of this year. Using the same average wage and counting overtime, the county paid them about $153,000 in 2006 and $73,000 this year.

Firefighters’ overtime has become contentious. It climbed to about $15 million last year. To curb overtime, the county is creating a relief staff of 25 to 40 employees who would receive regular pay to fill in for absent co-workers, including union negotiators.

Most of the relief staff will be made available by disbanding the county’s full-time heavy rescue and hazardous materials teams by July 1, a move the union has criticized, saying it will compromise public safety.

Sisolak said the $53,000 that union leaders received for 30 days of bargaining four years ago may not seem like a lot but it could pay for a mid-level job.

“To a family, that’s a lot,” he said.

He questioned why firefighters aren’t paid with union dues instead of public money. And if labor leaders such as Beaman get a union salary, they should not receive a dime of county money to negotiate, he said.

“He should not be able to double dip,” Sisolak said.

Beaman didn’t answer questions about union dues, including how much his members pay per month, what the money is used for and whether he receives a union salary.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid sided with Sisolak.

Reid said this is another example of the firefighters’ compensation swelling too much over the years.

“It seems like we should be paying them to protect the public, not to negotiate,” said Reid, a gubernatorial candidate who has become openly critical of the firefighters union. “If they’re in the room trying to further their own interests, I don’t see why the public should be paying them for that.”

But Commissioner Tom Collins, a strong union advocate, said paying labor leaders to negotiate avoids the petty squabbles that used to arise when the representatives took time off work to bargain.

The supervisors would tell them to return to work by a certain time, he said. If negotiations ran past that time, the union representatives’ pay would be docked.

“They (managers) were nickel-and-diming them,” Collins said.

Now, the union negotiators simply are paid for whatever time they spend bargaining, Collins said.

common practice

It’s common for local governments to pay unions to bargain on behalf of public safety employees.

The city of Las Vegas allocates the equivalent of a full-time firefighter’s position to handle union business, said Dean Fletcher, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 1285.

Union representatives draw from that bucket of hours to fulfill their duties, whether it’s attending health care committee meetings or bargaining.

The representatives can take up to two hours off work to negotiate before another firefighter fills in, Fletcher said, adding that most bargaining sessions with the city are wrapped up in a couple of hours.

“We don’t have the (county’s) marathon sessions,” Fletcher said, partly because the city’s labor contract is smaller.

The Las Vegas Police Protective Association gets a full-time, paid union representative for every 400 members. The union represents more than 3,200 police officers, so it can have up to eight union officials.

Chris Collins, the union’s executive director, said he strongly disagrees with the notion that public employee unions bargain against taxpayers.

“Police officers are taxpayers, too,” he said.

If the police union hadn’t sat down with management, then “taxpayers wouldn’t have gotten $5 million back,” he said, referring to recent contract concessions for the next budget year.

The $77 monthly dues that each member pays would not be enough to cover the union’s duties, Collins said.

However, the Service Employees International Union, which represents 9,500 county workers,  runs largely on its members’ dues. Those are roughly $45 a month.

The SEIU has a couple of dozen people on staff who are not on the county’s payroll and who represent about 18,000 workers in the region, said Amber Lopez Lasater, the union’s spokeswoman.

Having a larger pool of dues-paying employees helps give the union the resources to operate without additional money from local governments, Lopez Lasater said.

Sisolak said the police union has a more efficient model than the firefighters union.

The police representatives are paid the same salary, whether they bargain for three days or 30 days, giving them an incentive to keep negotiations short, he said. In contrast, those representing the firefighters get paid more for bargaining more, he said.

The costs ratchet up when you consider the county’s management team is paid with public money as well, Sisolak said.

“The taxpayer is paying for both sides to negotiate,” Sisolak said.

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.