LOCAL #149 NEWS&NOTES
April 20th, 2008
President’s Report Greg Womack
Brothers and Sisters, the contract vote was completed on Saturday the 19th. It passed with 157 yes votes to 46 no votes. All of the changes to the by-laws also passed. We will send out a clean copy of the by-laws real soon. The next step will be for City Council ratification, which should happen this Tuesday. First, I would like to thank the Negotiators, Jim Walker, Aaron Hummel, Shawn Res, and Marc Lewton. They did a great job for their first time at the table and I am sure they learned a lot. Second, I would like to thank all the members who helped in preparing data and numbers for the comparable cities, our arguments were solid and based on fact. I would also like to thank the members of the local for learning the issues and being an informed union member. We all have things we wish were better on this CLA, whether that be more money or enhanced benefits. I am confident we have positioned this Local to have a very bright future and believe thru continued political action our success will continue. A lot of the legwork and credit should go to past President Tom Lovell. Tom worked very hard behind the scenes on Binding Fact Finding to get the city council on board. This was not easy and required a lot of patience and political action. Thanks Tom for your hard work and selfless dedication to this Local. The benefits will be felt for many years to come.
Union Meeting:
Another great turnout at the April 16th Union meeting. We had about 50 members in attendance. Chief Doan addressed the body and answered questions. This is another reason you should come to the Union meeting. What other Department has a Chief that is so accessible to the membership. This is very refreshing. We had good dialog and debate. This is where you can have impact on the business and direction of this Local. Get involved, do not let somebody else carry your water!!! Log on to www.boisefirefighters.org to review the minutes. Noel Rios’ name was drawn for the kitty. The one time Noel was not at the meeting, what a bummer.
EMS Committee
The EMS committee made up of DC Raynor, Hanneman, Roberts, Oldenburg, Womack, Hummel, and Tiffany is working on defining the goals of our future in EMS. We are hiring a Training Specialist and a DC of EMS. The Training Captain position will be filled first. If you have any ideas or suggestions for the committee contact a member and give your input. We will have more information to follow.
Brush Rig Staffing:
We had a meeting last week at the ARFF Station. DC Oldenburg, and myself chaired the committee. We were tasked by the 48/96 MOU to discuss ways of improving the Brush Rig staffing this summer. We decided we will use a computerized phone system that can make up to 500 calls in one hour.(This is already available for us and will require training) This should help the Staffing Station with the hassle of making hours worth of calls. Make sure your contact list with phone numbers is updated at admin. We also decided that if Brush Trucks are put up based on the BI, they will up from 1000- 2200 hours. We decided to hold off on the pre staffing of Brush rigs at this time.
General Orders Committee:
Changes are a coming. The committee will be completing the overhaul of General Orders and will begin working on putting our Civil Service rules into the General Orders. Stay Tuned.
Vice President Report______________________________________Aaron Hummel
As many of you are aware, political action is probably the second most important thing we do behind safely responding to emergency calls. Politics govern just about every aspect of our service. This last week I had the opportunity to participate in one the most vital tools in this ongoing political struggle. Fire OPS 101 is not a sales pitch with catchy slogans or exaggerated claims. Fire OPS 101 is about helping our decision makers make informed decisions by having spent a day in the life of a firefighter. Very few people out there really grasp what all it is that we do.
To many, their perception of the fire service is of Roy Desoto and Johnny Gage playing checkers waiting for the occasional call. After last Friday, Alan Shealy and Tanya Wallace definitely have a better understanding of what we do. According to Shealy, he was humbled at the physical demands of the job. One of the additional benefits of this membership paying for the short trip to the Tri-Cities was that it allowed Jim Walker and me to have his and Tanya's ears for over 8 hours of collective drive time. This allowed us to answer questions and fully explain what we do day in and day out. It appeared that one of the things Shealy was most taken aback by was the psychological nature of our responses, both intellectually and emotionally. Intellectually, the technical aspects of the job. Emotionally, the repeated exposure to death and destruction of adults and children.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help further our cause of showing what we do for our $40 million cost. I am very excited at how this Local is positioned internally and in key offices of the PFFI. Many of you deserve a lot of credit for being engaged in political action in recent years. Keep up the good work.
*Important Change!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The next Union Meeting will be on THURSDAY May 22nd , 0830 @ Station #5. This a B Shift.
Please pass the word on the change. This will allow members just getting off shift to attend.
In Solidarity,
Greg Womack
President
Boise Fire Fighters
Local 149
