Altoona, International Association of Fire Fighters union agree to terms
Contract will expand current roster to 60
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The city will hire six additional firefighters soon, based on a new five-year contract that City Council approved this week with the city's International Association of Fire Fighters local.
Expanding the roster to 60 firefighters will increase the number on duty for each shift and generally increase the number per engine from two to three, helping to make it safer, especially when units first arrive at a fire scene -- which with the current roster means that a hoseman may need to enter a burning structure alone, according to Fire Chief Adam Free.
The focus on increasing the roster number for safety arose out of concern over a rash of firefighter injuries during the
department's fighting of several fatal fires this spring -- including two cases that resulted in long term disability, according to city Manager Christopher McGuire, whose 18-year-old brother Sean was killed as a volunteer firefighter in 1986 in upstate New York, trying to rescue several comrades and a patron from a restaurant blaze.
"(The injuries of the Altoona firefighters) served as a wakeup call," making everyone realize how dangerous the job is, McGuire said. "Both sides knew we needed to do something."
In addition to the harm caused to the firefighters themselves, the injuries sent the city's workers compensation insurance costs "skyrocketing," McGuire said.
The current contract requires a minimum of 11 firefighters to be on duty at all times, and that recently has been the actual number on most shifts, Free said.
That minimum requirement will continue in force, but in practice the new contract will enable department management to turn out 14 or 15 firefighters for most shifts -- although that can drop with vacations and sickness, according to Free.
Each side praised the other after the approval of the contract, which calls for 4% raises each year, for a total of 20% over the life of the contract.
"It was a collaborative effort -- a good faith negotiation," said union local President Patrick Miller. "They saw our concerns, and we saw the city's concerns."
"It was completely professional," with no personal animosity involved, McGuire said.
Both sides were determined not to resort to binding arbitration, as they had three years ago, the last time there were contract talks, according to Miller.
Arbitration doesn't benefit anyone, he said.
The recent negotiations helped eliminate the "bad taste" of that prior experience, which produced "no winners," McGuire said.
The union ratified the contract last week with a unanimous vote of those present -- the first time that has happened in the decade he's been president, Miller said.
That is telling, Miller said.
The union's negotiating team was its executive board, while the city's was McGuire, Human Resources Director Christina Notarfrancesco and her deputy Holly Buchanan, according to McGuire.
The parties started by locking in what they agreed upon, then focused on how to resolve what they didn't agree on, McGuire said.
Both parties would have liked to get to 16 firefighters per shift, but that would have been too expensive, McGuire said.
It could have been done with 24 hour shifts that were followed by 48 hours off, but that would have meant too much overtime, he said.
It could have been done with the current -- and future -- pattern of two 10-hour daylight shifts followed by two 14-hour night shifts followed by four days off, but that would have meant 70 firefighters on the roster, he said.
The six new firefighters will cost an additional $247,000 a year, McGuire said.
The city can afford it, based largely on additional funding raised by a tax increase this year, as recommended in the city's new comprehensive plan, according to McGuire.
City management made a priority of adding the firefighters rather than adding positions in the Community Development, Codes and Inspections and Administration departments that are targeted for roster increases to make up for position cuts in previous years -- including during the city's five years in the state's Act 47 program for financially distressed municipalities, according to McGuire.
All five of the city's bargaining units have been good to deal with, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose new contract was approved in April, after the old one expired at the end of 2024; and the Fraternal Order of Police, whose next contract is close to completion, and whose old one expires at the end of this year, like the firefighters' old contract, according to McGuire.