The new head of the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association hopes its battles with the City of San Antonio are behind them. The union hopes to make up lost ground on firefighter pay when contract negotiations start Thursday.
– Have the embers finally cooled between the City of San Antonio and the union representing its firefighters?
“Obviously, through empirical evidence, was very unhealthy previously,” he said. “And that wasn’t good for the City of San Antonio. And it was also not good for firefighters and paramedics.”Firefighters’ pay is the hottest priority for the union for the upcoming contract talks. “Historically, we’re a destination department. People leave other departments to come to San Antonio,” Jones said. “And what we’ve seen, by and through our poor compensation over the last decade, is we’ve seen a decline in people leaving other departments to come to us, and we’ve seen an increase in our talent leaving for other departments because they get similar pay — sometimes even better pay — for far lower output.
The union’s current contract ends Dec. 31, though an “evergreen” clause could keep its terms in place through the end of 2029 if a new deal isn’t struck by then. But given the deal an arbitration panel handed down to the city and union in February 2020, it is debatable whether it is worth it.Things are even more stark when looking at the compounding effect of police officers’ larger and more numerous raises in the past decade.
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