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Good Morning Local 141,
I’m waiting for my breakfast this morning thinking over the conversation I had with VP Gibbons yesterday in regards to our negotiations with the city. For those of you who don’t know, we have been meeting a couple of months with the city hoping to reach an agreement on our contract. We had put an offer on the table we felt was fair for the city giving on a couple of items and in return we asked for a reasonable wage increase of 7% over the next three year. The city has said “no”. We as local 141 have always attempted to work with the city to resolve issues, and have often went over and above helping out when truly needed. Brothers and Sister those days are fleeting rapidly. Forgotten by the city are the three person squads we once had, forgotten is Ladder 5, Forgotten was us taking the lead and contributing to the pension, forgotten is leading a merger that drove down the cost of fire protection for two communities. It is simply forgotten. We now have a city and administration that holds a position of making a point even when not needed. The city is not broke, we are healthy, and don’t think for one second the city did it alone our members helped them out. In return, our Chief is holding strong to 7 in a vacation block and cutting 6 positions. It gets sugar coated by saying it will be done through attrition, as if that makes it ok. The Chief has also remained strong on his promotional language where he hand picks his own people who bow to the king. The wage team was also informed that the city is just going to take the holiday pay from our protected day staff at the first of the year. This is who we have as a leader. We are off to interest arbitration, and as far as I’m concerned everything is on the table and your wage team has no fear. We will be contacting our council members, its time to see who is an independent thinker and who is a puppet to the Mayor. I am also putting all of local 141 on notice that after Mary Burke wins the Governors seat our focus will shift to the top seat of the city for the spring election.
Senior members please sit with some of our younger members, talk about what we had and what we’ve given. Remind others of when times were bad and we stepped up to help, for the foreseeable future that is in the past. Then explain the importance of helping when it comes to politics it’s simple and easy but makes a huge difference. As for our leadership it’s easy to attack the ones you lead when you sit behind a desk and never look them in the eye.
Chad Bronkhorst
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