Breakthrough in firefighter negotiations with city

The City of El Paso had a breakthrough in deadlocked negotiations with the city’s firefighters Tuesday. City council’s plea to union leaders seems to have worked for now. There’s a chance to get to a contract hammered out instead of sending it to voters in a may referendum. But the clock is still ticking.

The city and the local 51 firefighter’s union hit an impasse over a new collective bargaining agreement last year, and subsequent mediation failed. The only recourse before this was placing the issues on the May 9 ballot: drug testing, insurance premium increases and pay.

But Tuesday, city reps. spoke directly to union leaders, pleading for renewed negotiations and the time to make them happen ahead of an election.

“This is a very difficult situation,” said Courtney Niland, city rep. for district 8. “And as we said last week, we don’t want to be at odds with you guys. We just don’t. We don’t want to be in this position.”

The city’s new proposal would keep the pay increase at 1.25%, take drug testing off the table for now, and offer a “wellness program” that could more than cover the insurance increase facing firefighters.

“Any dollar amount is favorable,” said Joe Tellez, the Local 51 union president. “We’ve got to look at the complete package, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Options presented by city council directly to Tellez and other firefighter union leadership present at Tuesday’s meeting would include either health factors or fitness tests that firefighters could earn $150 a month for completing.

“Our healthcare costs right now are exorbitant,” Niland said. “And we need to do whatever we can as healthcare costs are on the rise to try and curb some of those expenses. So just by making these investments in our team members, in our employees, fire, police, we can see hopefully a reduction in those costs, so everybody could win.”
The good faith shown by city reps have union leadership hopeful.

“Well, it’s optimistic,” Tellez said. “I mean, both sides had drawn a line and we were stuck on a certain item. This kind of allows us to start talking again.”

But even with the renewed good faith, time is against a resolution. The firefighter’s union bylaws require a five week block of time for members to accept any new decisions, and the May 9 election will be looming large over the bargaining table.