San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Fire union ‘underwhelmed’ by city’s offer
San Antonio city negotiators on Friday offered firefighters a 20% raise over the next five years, marking the first proposal to come out of talks with the fire union for a new employment contract.
The pay hike would be spread out with 4% annual raises starting in January 2025.
Fire union negotiators didn’t say during the bargaining session how much they’ll seek in pay raises. But Joe Jones, president of the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, clearly wasn’t thrilled with the city’s proposal.
“What I see when I see 20% over five years is I see additional pay cuts over the next half decade,” Jones told reporters Friday, referring to recent rates of high inflation, which cuts into workers’ spending power.
He said union members who watched the session via livestream found the city’s initial offer “underwhelming.”
Friday was the first official day of contract negotiations between the union and the city.
This current fiscal year, which started in October, city workers received a 4% pay boost. That did not apply to police and firefighters, whose compensation is set by multiyear labor contracts worked out between their unions and the city.
Jones said the union won’t make its own pay proposal until it gets an idea of what the city can afford.
“I believe it communicates a respect to city management that we’re going to take a look at their numbers, we’re going to consider them and we’re going to weigh them against feedback from our members,” he said.
Firefighters went five years without raises from 2015 to 2020 because they were locked in a stalemate after the previous contract expired at the end of 2014. Chris Steele, the union president at the time, and thenCity Manager Sheryl Sculley had a contentious relationship, deepening the divide between the two sides.
Sculley retired in 2018 after the union convinced voters to approve a charter amendment that capped future city managers’ compensation and tenure — a measure that was largely viewed as a referendum on her leadership.
At the union’s request, negotiations were ultimately resolved in 2020 through arbitration. That resulted in wages that were less generous than those the city had offered, said Deputy City Manager María Villagómez, the city’s lead negotiator.
The current five-year contract expires in December. The city is looking to hammer out another five-year agreement, but the union wants to ratify a three-year contract that would take effect on Oct. 1, to align with the start of the city’s fiscal year.
Villagómez told reporters that the city had expected the union to put “an actual wage proposal” on the table.
The union did commit, however, to give its pay proposal to the city ahead of the April 4 negotiating session.
A 20% pay increase would cost $132.9 million over a fiveyear contract. That would keep police and fire spending below 66% of the city’s general fund budget. A Sculley-era financial policy required budget writers not to exceed that limit so that public safety wouldn’t crowd out general fund spending on other necessities, such as street work, libraries and senior centers. The City Council has adopted the rule every budget season since 2014.
Villagómez said the city aims to ensure that San Antonio Fire Department personnel are paid competitive wages.
The department has 18 vacancies, which the union attributes to insufficient pay for the number of calls firefighters take each shift.
In addition to pay raises, the union wants to move from a work week of 56 hours to 42 hours, which it said Houston’s fire department follows. That would mean firefighters and paramedics would work a 24hour shift followed by 72 hours off. Currently, they get 48-consecutive hours off the clock.
The union is also looking to increase incentive pay, holiday pay and the city’s health plan contribution.