City budget woes are keeping the heat on firefighters and stoking fiction between Interim Chief Todd Chandler and some firefighters.
Last month, firefighters were outraged at comments Chandler made during a series of addresses talking up the importance of preserving valuable fire equipment. Some fire-fighters complain that Chandler was demanding an injured firefighter for every $10,000 piece of equipment destroyed in a blaze.
"(I) saw one thermal imaging camera that got so burned I couldn't even recognize what it's supposed to be. First question hits my mind is, man, if something like this happens, there's got to be a dead firefighter or one seriously injured somewhere. But there wasn't," Chandler pointed out at one meeting in March. "How does something get burnt up to pieces and nobody's injured?"
Audience members said Chandler gave the impression that he values expensive equipment more than he does firefighters.
"We're already short-staffed, and now the fire chief here wants to know . . . how he got a piece of burnt-up equipment without a dead fireman on the end of it," said Local 87 Firefighters Union President Brandon Falcon, who added that the combination of losing needed resources and these insensitive comments "is putting a pretty good track record on what he cares about us as labor."
Chandler did not return calls.
When asked if he could be misinterpreting Chandler's statement, Falcon said Chandler had plenty of time to revise his message to reflect his point more accurately.
"This is a planned statement. He had nine meetings, two a day for three days in a row, and in every statement he asked where the dead firefighter was," Falcon said.
Chandler's recent decision to rescind Memo No. 2005-63 further raised firefighters' ire. The memo, written in October 2005, allows firefighters to swap time with other firefighters. If a firefighter needs to take off a morning to take a child to the doctor, that firefighter can ask another firefighter to work his half or full shift, under the agreement that the first firefighter will reciprocate the time at a later date. In this way, a firefighter looking to set aside some vacation time can work a few double shifts for a comrade.
On April 3, Chandler put an end to the practice, which is not mandated by the union contract. "The Fire Administration is regretfully rescinding Memo No. 2005-63 … concerning shift exchange," Chandler wrote in a memo, arguing that he is forced to rescind the policy at the urging of the Jackson Firefighters Association president, who demands the interim chief "honor the contract for the purpose it was written."
Falcon, who is that president, says Chandler intentionally took his words "honor the contract for the purpose it was written," out of context.
"I made no reference to swap time, and Chandler knows it. This is punishment, pure and simple," Falcon said, adding that he made his demand in reference to a contract violation regarding two firefighters' schedule changes.
Two firefighters recently complained to union leaders that their 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. jobs were changed without negotiation, in violation of Article 10, Section 3, of a union contract demanding that schedule alterations must be discussed with employees. In that regard, Falcon said he advised the administration to "follow the contract."
Station 15 Captain A.J. Bryant explained that rescinding the memo also means returning borrowed work time within 30 days of getting it and pre-planning when the beneficiary intends to make up the exchanged work. Bryant warned that almost every firefighter in the city will regard this as castigation.
"Chandler's trying to punish us because the Local 87 president actually stood up," Bryant said, accusing Chandler of being selective in adhering to contract agreements. "There are plenty of other contract violations (by JFD officials). Don't pick and choose what you want to follow. Just follow the whole thing if that's what you intend to do."
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