Turner should make arbitration, not war, with firefighters union
In the six years since the contract between firefighters and the city of Houston expired, taxpayers have put up with — and bankrolled — a protracted legal fight that has made both sides look bad.
We’ve waited patiently for the tit-fortat between Mayor Sylvester Turner and leaders of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association to play out. We’ve endured bargaining stalemates, charter amendments, lawsuits, Supreme Court decisions, and potshots from both sides in the press coverage, all the while assuming that, at some point, cooler heads would get in a room and hammer out a deal.
With the clock running out on Turner’s mayoralty and the two sides still at an impasse, we welcomed legislative intervention to, in effect, mandate a cooler head to settle the matter — three, actually.
State lawmakers overwhelmingly passed Senate Bill 736, sponsored by state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and mayoral candidate, requiring the city to enter into a binding arbitration process with the firefighters union. The bill empowers a panel of three arbitrators — one selected by the city, one selected by the firefighters and one mutually agreed-upon neutral party — which would result in a one-year contract. The Turner administration tried to stonewall the bill, arguing it shouldn’t take effect until next year because of the impact it would have on the city’s next budget. Lawmakers were unswayed, and Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law earlier this month.
It’s worth noting that the bill passed the Senate unanimously and that not a single member of the Harris County delegation in the House voted against it.
We hoped that was the end of it. So did the firefighters. Days after Abbott signed the bill, the firefighters’ attorney, Troy Blakeny, sent a letter to the city’s attorney, Arturo Michel, hoping to kickstart the arbitration process.
Nope. The Chronicle’s Dylan McGuinness reported that the city’s attorneys told a civil court judge on Monday that they plan to challenge SB 736, arguing that its targeted language
— applying only to cities with 1.9 million people, a standard only Houston meets — is unconstitutional.
Turner told the editorial board Tuesday that he believes that Whitmire’s bill can only be applied to future bargaining sessions, not to settle the 2017 contract impasse: “The city is prepared to engage in collective bargaining, which would include arbitration going forward,” Turner told us. “But if the firefighters union is trying to apply Senate Bill 736 retroactively, we are saying no.”
That seems a stretch. The bill was clearly intended to be retroactive: it’s attempting to resolve a stalemate dating back to 2017.
Turner’s latest maneuver is part of the long-running legal dispute, not just over the 2017 contract, which remains in the courts, but also a separate legal case over pay parity. Voters approved a charter amendment in 2018 — known as Proposition B — which required the city to pay its firefighters on a similar scale to the city’s police officers of similar ranks. The city declined to implement that measure and challenged its legality, and the Texas Supreme Court struck it down in March.
We wouldn’t be in this mess if the city hadn’t denied the union’s original 2017 request for arbitration on the grounds that it did not want to outsource the budget to an external panel. It was never a strong argument, considering that arbitrators typically consider a city’s long-term fiscal outlook in determining ability to pay.
Meanwhile, City Controller Chris Brown’s fears that Houston is teetering on a “fiscal cliff ” are warranted. The city has relied on robust federal aid in the past several years to plug budget holes, including using American Rescue Plan funds to pay for three-year, 18 percent raises for firefighters, beginning in 2021. As those dollars dry up, city officials have forecast deficits between $114 million and $268 million during the next mayor’s term.
We understand why Turner doesn’t want this arbitration and the new expenses that will likely result. Whitmire doesn’t want it on his watch either, should he become mayor; that’s why he made sure the law would take effect before Turner left office. Turner considers fiscal responsibility a hallmark of his legacy, and he’s justified in not wanting to see that tarnished.
Still, Whitmire’s bill isn’t requiring anything cruel or unusual. Cities such as Austin and San Antonio have used mandatory arbitration, albeit approved by voters in charter amendments, to break contract logjams with firefighter unions. While San Antonio’s credit rating was downgraded after it reached a five-year contract with its firefighters, rating agencies later adjusted it and viewed the agreement as a win for the city. The alternative to arbitration is to leave the decision to the Supreme Court, which could very well rule for firefighters, awarding millions of dollars in back pay, interest and penalties.
While we agree with the state Supreme Court’s rejection of the firefighters’ desire for pay parity with police — in part because their pension benefits are far more generous than police officers’ — firefighters undoubtedly deserve a fair contract.
The rift between Turner and the firefighters has grown too deep. Another prolonged legal battle will just cost more money that Houston doesn’t have. It’s time to dispense with the stalling tactics, follow the law and let arbitrators finish the job. Cooler heads are more likely to prevail.