Firefighters ink deal

After a seven-year wait, Thunder Bay Firefighters are satisfied with the arbitration awarded that effectively places their salaries on par with city police, says the union’s president.

City officials announced Tuesday an agreement has been handed down by arbitrator Maureen Saltman that gives firefighters an average retroactive wage hike of 3.79 per cent between 2004 and 2010. Firefighters will also receive pay increases for reaching service milestones – a three per cent increase after three years of service, six percent after 17 and nine after 2.3

The annual base salary for a Class 1 firefighter with 23 years of service will be $87,400.
Thunder Bay Firefighters Association President Eric Nordlund said the deal was fair and he said he is relieved that the long wait is over.

"The firefighters are satisfied with the contents of the award and are looking forward to sitting down with the city for the next round of bargaining, which unfortunately we’re into already," Nordlund said. "In our view the length was a one off situation that I doubt very much that we will face it again."

While it isn’t clear what all the reasons were that caused the long wait, Nordlund said the arbitrator retiring in the middle of the negations didn’t help.

City manager Tim Commisso agreed the settlement took too long with the average arbitration processing taking 37 months.

"The decision didn’t reflect any of the outcomes that we were hoping so why did it take so long to get to a decision," Commisso said. "We were hoping the arbitrator would rule to put in place some permanent savings to offset, what we had anticipated, was parity with police."

A long arbitration process places strain on relationships, so something needs to be done to ensure that future negotiations don’t take as long, he said.

The city already fully paid the increases granted for 2004 to 2006, and partially paid the increases for the ensuing years. The city set money aside in 2010 to cover the cost of the wage increase, he said.

The largest increase awarded was a 5.83 per cent one given for 2007; the smallest is 3.25 per cent, given for 2008 and 2010.

A wage contingency fund has been set aside to cover the remaining increases.