All of the city’s bargaining groups are under the new terms and conditions. It took a year and a half from the expiration of the old contracts on June 30, but last month the council imposed the last, best, and final offer on DCEA and last night, they voted to do the same with fire. Both votes were 5-0.
There was a small amount of gamesmanship as no one moved forward with a motion when Mayor Joe Krovoza called for a motion on the item. After Mayor Krovoza moved the staff recommendation, Councilmembers Brett Lee and Rochelle Swanson, who was participating remotely, jumped in for the second.
The city’s chief negotiator, Tim Yeung, expressed disappointment that the two sides were not able to reach agreement, as he felt like they were very close on a few occasions.
The big sticking point was on retiree health. Under the current system, the city offers the same benefits that current employees make where the city pays one hundred percent of the Kaiser premium for the entire family. This carries the cost of about $1800 per month, which is a very generous benefit.
The city proposed reducing that benefit from that $1800 per month, down to the basic Medicare rate which is closer to $800 per month.
Mr. Yeung noted that the firefighters were unwilling to go there or consider any second-tier benefit, so “without that savings we couldn’t fund the pay increases for the other parts of the of the deal.”
Speaking during public comment, union president Bobby Weist told the council that the firefighters’ union is very “disappointed in the factfinder’s decision.”
“The reason we’re disappointed in that is because there was no reasoning behind them except for the fact that the POA had already accepted (the concessions),” he told the council. “That just leads us to believe that these were not negotiations, that they were basically preordained.”
He argued that the proposals presented by the city were all “virtually the same, there was no movement at all from our estimation by the city.” He said that the first thing they offered to do was to pick up 3% of the pension costs, “which we don’t have to do until 2018.”
Mr. Weist became animated and lit into council when he spoke about the recent hiring process and the fact that the city, from his perspective, forced future employees to line up in the cold.
“This just shows you where our thought process is,” he explained, “Recently there was a test given for firefighters and those people stood out in the cold. We have nothing to do with the testing process.”
“As we mentioned last week, at the previous council meeting we knew nothing about that test,” he said.
“It was written in the paper and there were many comments which we’ll clarify that we should be ashamed of ourselves,” he added. “I will tell you the reason we are here today and the reason we are being imposed upon by you this evening is because we are trying to take care of those people that were standing out in the cold, that are trying to get these jobs, that are going to become members of our local.”
He continued, “They aren’t yet, but we feel very strongly about that. We have taken pay cuts in the past. We have taken on extra work. We’ve done everything we can work to make sure that all of our members are paid appropriately and their benefits are equal to the rest of us. We all do the same job.”
Councilmember Lucas Frerichs noted that he was supportive of the motion this evening and added, “I do think that the reducing of the cafeteria plan cash out from 1500 per month on 500 per month is reasonable.”
He added, “It’s not liking people are excited about it certainly and it’s a real hit to people’s pockets for those are taking it, but I think it still remains a pretty great benefit for us.”
He continued, “I am sorry that this will be a pretty decent size hit to people in the pocketbook and that is not something I’m really excited about doing.”
“This past year and a half there have been a number of items that I disagreed with, past cuts and contracting out of services that [have] ultimately been acted and I was really opposed to those because I felt they were not in the best interest of the community,” Councilmember Frerichs continued. “But I think that one of the many roles on council is to make sure the city fiscal house is in order and we’re able to do that primarily through the negotiations of contract labor costs.”
His colleagues expressed similar sentiments that this was not a vote that they relished. However, the firefighters are a well-compensated bargaining unit. Those people who stood out in the cold last week were competing for jobs that would pay over $175,000 in total compensation at the entry level.
Councilmember Lee addressed this issue, however, noting, “This is not a nice thing to have happen and it’s interesting, as you know I’ve run into in the community where there’s this idea that, oh you know people who earn more, it’s not that big deal to cut their pay.”
He added, “I think that’s not true, I mean you know I think we’re a fairly fortunate group of people up here on the dais and I’ve had my pay cut before and it wasn’t a pleasant experience and so I think we need to be respectful and a little empathetic.”
Council then voted 5-0 on a motion made by Mayor Krovoza and seconded by Councilmember Lee to impose the last, best, and final offer and put an end to this bargaining cycle for the city.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Bobby’s remarks are in quotes, therefore we can assume they are accurate and in context. There is no immediate recognizable relationship between “people standing out in the cold” and the Council Agenda item of cuts in compensation for fire fighters. Perhaps, Bobby was trying to portray the image that City leaders have a multi-faceted vendetta against fire fighters, both active and prospective. The “we against they” rhetoric is standard fare with union leaders. Bobby is also noted as openly pandering to those fortunate applicants who will achieve employment, and pay union fees in the near future.
Blame was assigned to the City for “forcing” fire fighter candidates suffering from cold weather discomforts. Had the job candidates appeared at the date, time, and location stated in the City announcement, there would have been no weather discomfort. These sufferers willingly accepted these circumstances of their own accord, in order to obtain some advantage in gaining a highly sought job position. Noteworthy is the fact that these were the same jobs that Bobby was lamenting as having endured a series of unfair and arbitrarily rendered compensation cuts.
Only common courtesy prevented a council member asking why Bobby’s beleaguered work force is nonetheless so coveted a position that hundreds of people willingly freeze their butts off to join their ranks. The Union President committed yet another huge tactical and public relations gaff in combining these unrelated events.
President Weist is quoted as saying that ” . . . we (fire fighter union) knew nothing about the (fire fighter exam) test.” This ill advised remark was doubtless intended as an attempt by the union to disassociate itself from any aspect of the testing process.
To have a fire fighter union official and supervisor admit publicly that he had no knowledge of the announced exam calls into question Weist’s awareness of his surroundings. Literally hundreds of other persons, including many from outside the area, were aware. How could Bobby remain unaware of something so widely known and also essential to his role as union president?
I think the real reason Mr. Weist complained about the 300 or so people standing in line “out in the cold” is that it demonstrated the inconvenient truth that the supply of qualified labor for a firefighter job FAR outstrips the demand. And the reason the supply FAR outstrips the demand is that firefighters are paid FAR more than they are worth when compared to almost any other job the people in this line would qualify for.
So, firefighters are heroes that deserve their rich pay and benefits. We need to have empathy for them having to take what amounts to a pretty small haircut.
Let’s do a comparison.
The recent bipartisan federal budget passed by the House includes cuts to military retiree benefits.
Talk about contrast.
I’m sorry, but after reading about these cuts to the benefits of the people that have put their lives on the line… the same that have come home drastically injured and disabled fighting to keep the rest of us free to stand up at the podium and demand that we get to keep our $175,000 annual compensation and age-50 retirement… well I’m so disgusted I could spit.
The city is heading toward bankruptcy and the firefighters and their union had the chance to behave like real heroes… accepting that their unsustainable gravy train had rightfully and justifiably come to and end. They could have accepted the offers provided because the city needed it… and mostly because it would have been the right thing to do. But instead they push the message that they are $175,000 per year victims.
And understanding what our veterans are dealing with, can any of them taking this position really look themselves in the mirror and feel good about it?
I hope not.
Giving up something never feels good unless you can consider someone other than yourself.
it was a smart move by the city to have the public showing – it puts pressure on the union to acknowledge that wages and benefits can drop because there is an over supply of qualified labor. and as someone noted, these guys are not victims, they chose to stand in the cold. weist was just whining because he knows he lost.
It may have the political effect you point out. However, in my opinion, it’s not the right thing to do to innocent people; it’s unnecessary; and I doubt that the city’s leaders made any political calculation. I simply think the city used the application process it did because that is what most cities now do and it serves the city’s purposes.
Had anyone asked me, I would have advised they handle it with mail-in applications, giving the job-seekers a limited window to get their forms in. From the applications received, the city then could have randomly selected 100 or so, weeding out any who did not meet the application standards. And among those randomly selected and qualified, they could have scheduled interviews and tests in person at a specific time and date.
That would have actually been cheaper for the city (by not having to staff the VMC and keep 4 cops there that night) and cheaper for the applicants (who did not have to drive to Davis and spend 40 hours in line in the cold). And it would have, at least as well, derived the list of potential hires that the city wants.
Also, the city could have issued a statement of facts in a press release, saying just how many applications they received in the mail, how many were randomly taken, how many would be interviewed and tested and (if any) how many would be hired. Such a statement would have achieved as much political benefit.
One last note: I was aware of what was going to happen during this process several weeks before it took place. I was the one who gave the heads up to The Enterprise to get a photographer on scene to get a picture of the long line, which I was certain would develop. I was thinking of the political angle on that. However, my feelings really did change when I got down there at 9 pm the night before and saw all those hopefuls waiting in line as the temperature dropped below 32 degrees. It was then that I came to the conclusion that this is not as humane a process as our city should employ, politics or not.
I agree I don’t think they needed to have people standing out in the cold to make the point that a Davis Firefighter position is in high demand. (not that I am convinced that was their motive). This practice seems unnecessary and I don’t understand it’s objective.
Hmm… let me see. These are prospective employees that are supposed to carry 65-75 pounds on the bodies, and climb stairs and brave all levels of hostile environmental situation and we are complaining about them having to stand in line outside in the cold? How many people stood outside in line in the cold just so they could get a TV on sale or the new Xbox 10?
I’m sure they were fine given that they were basically in line to win a lottery of personal wealth.
I’m asking why they have to stand in line? It unfairly excludes candidates that can’t come wait in line, because the have jobs, or live to far away, etc. I think they can come up with a better way of screening candidates. One that actually reflects their ability to the job.
Ok. That is a reasonable point. But then nothing about the employment situation with our firefighters seems reasonable, so why are we surprised?
When there will be a large turnout of applicants, sometimes it is a good idea to require a personal attendance to weed out the flood of dog applicants that you will get. Frankly, it demonstrates something if a person wants the job bad enough to go through the process of standing in line.
A hiring manager just cannot vet an endless supply of applications. It needs to be cut off at some point. So if you did it online or by mail, you would still end up excluding candidates that could not send in their application as quickly as others.
If I am hiring and I have a candidate tell me he/she is limited in the time available for an interview, that is an indication of lower drive for the job. Someone that is really motivated to want the job will find a way to make it easy on the hiring manager. And sometimes I test people because I have so many candidates and I need to filter out those with lower motivation/drive.
I agree that there should be a way to weed out those less qualified or motivated. But I don’t think, for instance, a candidates limited availability necessarily reflects their motivation. Lots of other reasons that have nothing to do with their motivation for a job can effect there flexibility. Do you ever ask them why their time is limited? Maybe it’s for reasons that would make them a superior candidate.
I can think of better ways to limit less motivated applicants, like a really long, cumbersome, application.
Davis Progressive wrote:
> it was a smart move by the city to have the public showing – it puts
> pressure on the union to acknowledge that wages and benefits can
> drop because there is an over supply of qualified labor.
If Davis really wanted to put pressure on the union they should have said they would take applications from all that applied like they did in Sacramento recently where close to 2,000 people applied.
I find it hard to believe that the Union “knew nothing about the test” when the guy that takes care of my brother in law’s horses (an EMT with a Fire Science Degree) in Amador County knew about it.
There was a cost-associated with each application they processed that made it impractical to do that.
As Rich points out the city can take 1,000+ applications and then pull 50-100 out of a spinning basket (on live TV after a city council meeting) to keep costs even lower than the current system.
I know nothing about how the city of Davis hires, but with the exception of the lucky woman or minority most departments seem to hire friends or relatives of current union firefighters. In Davis are the hiring decisions made by the city HR department or fire department?
If you know nothing about the process why make assumptions that expose your prejudices? In one sentence you express accusations of both nepotism and bigotry. This could represent a new all time low for Vanguard posting.
I did not make “assumptions” about Davis I just stated known “facts” about other departments and asked a “question” about Davis. To be fair a kid with an Uncle in a department who has been a Junior Firefighter since 16 and unpaid volunteer at the department since 18 is often a good hire when he has shown over the past 6 years that he is a smart kid and hard worker…
“In Davis are the hiring decisions made by the city HR department or fire department?”
That’s a good question. I know (from speaking with Police Chief Landy Black) that when the DPD hires an officer, the Chief makes the final decision, though I presume he takes input from his adjutants. By extension, I presume that in normal circumstances, when the DFD hires a new firefighter, the Fire Chief makes the call.
Until recently, Black was serving as the acting fire chief. As such, I don’t know if he would have made the call by himself.
However, my understanding is that Nathan Trauernicht has taken over the DFD fire chief duties already. As such, I would guess that Chief Trauernicht will have the last word on who is hired.
“Most departments seem to hire friends or relatives of current union firefighters.”
I’m not sure how true or not true that is. I doubt there is favoritism per se.
I do know that Bobby Weist’s son was recently hired as a firefighter. (I think he told me it was a department in Solano County, but which I don’t remember.) And I know the DFD has firefighters who are the sons of firefighters. But I am not sure there is anything untoward in that.
I think what gives them a leg up, more than favoritism, is that they begin preparing themselves for jobs as firefighters from a very early age, including doing a lot of volunteer work for fire departments. As a result, they tend to have an established resume on the job BEFORE ever getting their first job as a full-time professional firefighter. By contrast, their competitors for those jobs often start later and don’t spend their teens volunteering for emergency services work, and so appear to be a bit less qualified for hire.
… Along these lines, one Davis firefighter told me his very extensive background as a volunteer in the Santa Cruz area. He said he knew he wanted to be a firefighter from age 14. (His parents were not firefighters.) He said that by the time he was hired in Davis for his first professional position, he had worked hundreds and hundreds of hours without pay, and he had a plethora of experience dealing with emergencies, including people who had been badly hurt in car accidents, explosions, etc. He also was comfortable, by dint of experience, with the fire department culture. The DFD thus knew there was nothing he would face, if they hired him, that he was not well prepared to handle.
Everyone today that wants even a mid-skilled job better have prior work experience. Many kids today have to work as unpaid interns before they are selected for jobs that pay less than 20% of what a average Davis firefighter makes. There is nothing unique here. It is just a sign of the high levels of competition for a job that pays so well. Pays for time sleeping. Provides much more free time that almost any other full-time career… and allows a person to retire at age 50 for an end of life paid vacation.
I was just thinking about the bonehead idea to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The more a job pays, the more competition there will be for the job and the fewer jobs there will be for those lacking experience, education or skill.
But I have no doubt that being related to a firefighter is a big benefit to being hired as a firefighter. In many larger cities, the unions are like cartels where it is difficult to get hired if you lack a relative already in the business.
This is another free labor market-distorting effect that unions provide.
Just loaded the youtube video of Weist speaking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4dAd50UtNE&feature=share&list=UUlQTrZLe3mRfGvW4vfHibMg
Also Weist said that they didn’t know anything about the test, but one of the applicants was Joe Tenney, the union VP’s son, so how did the VP know but not the President?
Bobby is obviously not a good liar.
On the threads about the firefighters compensation a couple of numbers keep recurring. Those are the 36% pay increase negotiated by the firefighters and the 18 % increase negotiated by the police. I have a couple of questions for those of you with historical awareness of this issue.
At the time of these negotiations:
1) Were the Davis firefighters significantly under compensated with comparison to surrounding communities or to
similarly situated communities ?
2) Was the ratio of their pay to the local police significantly lower than that of the same comparison groups ?
I ask because it would seem to me that at the time, there must have been some reasonably compelling argument behind such a dramatic difference in compensation changes. Given Mr. Weiss’s current inability to formulate convincing arguments about the unsafe nature of proposed personnel changes, unwillingness to collaborate with the university fire department and completely egregious statements about unawareness of and/or inhumanity of the applicant process, his powers of persuasion would not seem to me to be adequate to get to a 3-2 vote without some hard evidence that it was the right thing to do. I am aware that there are at least two sides to every story.
We have heard a great deal from the side that views public labor unions as inherently corrupt and that this was purely political payback.
I am wondering about the “other side of the story”.
Allow me to answer that with a link: https://davisvanguard.org/vanguard-analysis-davis-firefighters-near-top-in-compensation-police-near-bottom/
That link show that firefighters in Davis are near the top in compensation in the region, whereas police are near the bottom.
Then there’s this article from 2009, Why Do Firefighters Make Substantially More Than Police Officers in Davis?: https://davisvanguard.org/why-do-firefighters-make-substantially-more-than-police-officers-in-davis/
Interesting that after this story is up for over 24 hours and most of the usual suspects have weighed in you are all silent on the 5-0 vote to impose. Many of you have made some pretty nasty remarks about members of the council who have not voted the Vanguard reactionary party line on the FF’s discounting their concerns about public safety as little more than an excuse to do the bidding of the evil union. Yet here we are after the biggest vote of them all, the vote to impose a contract, a vote that was 5-0 and not a single word of praise for the members for their courage or a single admission that any of your remarks were regrettable. Shame on you all and I hope that going forward the debate on public safety can be argued on the merits instead of some of the arguments that have been made here in the comments section.
your logic here escapes me mr. toad. everyone agreed on the need for the structural reforms, including the firefighters. the 5-0 vote only shows what many of us knew already, the line in the sand had moved beyond the contract to issues like staffing and management which are at the core of what remains of bobby’s control of his organization.
One of the most useful things that the Exploit board could do to help them secure sustainable revenue is to strongly advocate for Davis economic development. That means taking a stance in opposition to the land preservation and no-growth extremists that have dominated Davis’s political landscape for decades.
I am limiting my company charitable donations to those institutions that are at least completely neutral on land-use policy decision advocacy, and those that are strong advocates of peripheral business development will benefit from greater generosity. Bottom line is that I am not going to do much to help others that are not advocating to help themselves.
Oh just think if there had been any no votes. How you all would have screamed. What do we hear instead of praise its the din of one hand clapping.
so lucas voted to impose impasse on fire, but voted against fire staffing cuts and shared management (twice), dan voted to impose impasse on fire, but voted against staffing cuts and shared management (once) and you want them to be praised over three council members who voted for reform every single time?
I want them all praised for doing the right thing on the biggest vote of them all and i want all you bashers to admit you were wrong about Lucas and Dan.
I don’t know that you get agreement that this was the biggest vote of them all. For me the biggest vote was on fire staffing, because it undid some of the excesses that began in 1999. The firefighters might believe that the shared management services is the biggest vote, because they worked the hardest to avoid it. For me, the contract is simply imposing on the firefighters what was agreed to by all other bargaining units.
So you have created a subjective measure for success, demand that people agree with your subjective measure, and then demand people admit that they were wrong about two individuals because they met your subjective threshold. I don’t think it works that way.
I think that this is a reference to what I was hoping to hear about “historically”. You reference
“excesses that date back to 1999” but in your response to me went only back so far as 2005.
At some point can you elaborate a bit on how this all got started ?
It would seem that since there were many fewer applicants for police positions that the logical step to attract more candidates would be to raise the compensation for those positions and yet the opposite happened. This has repeatedly been put forth as a near direct political “pay off” and yet I cannot help but think that some kind of rationale must have existed in the beginning. It is that piece of the picture that I am missing.
I believe last year I did two articles on how 3% at 50 came about and how four on an engine came about. I’ll try to find them.