The Boston firefighters union has ratified a $27.35 million agreement with the city that includes a roughly 10.6% bump in pay over a three-year period.
The contract was ratified by union membership last Friday. The two sides reached a tentative agreement two weeks ago, effectively avoiding arbitration after months of failed negotiations.
“We are pleased to announce the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement focused on the needs of Boston’s communities and the dedicated firefighters who are always on call to keep our city safe,” Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston Firefighters Local 718 President Sam Dillon said in a joint statement.
“This agreement reflects our shared commitment to delivering the exceptional city services that make Boston the best place to live, work and raise a family. We look forward to presenting this agreement to the City Council for approval.”
A Wu spokesperson said the $27.35 million cost of the contract has been filed as a supplemental fiscal year 2024 budget appropriation for the Wednesday City Council meeting.
As part of that cost, firefighters will receive retroactive pay increases of 3% apiece for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, and a 2.5% raise for fiscal year 2024, which began on July 1, 2023.
The contract extends from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024, meaning that the two sides will be back at the bargaining table this spring, a city official told the Herald.
It also includes a 1.5% increase for hazardous duty compensation, which only covers the current fiscal year, and a nighttime paid detail bump of $8.
For the latter, which includes nightclub and movie theater oversight, the raise is the first in “quite some time.” It is meant to incentivize work that had grown unappealing due to the low compensation, the city official said.
According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the city had aggressively pursued additional compensation for the 150 firefighters who work in the fire department headquarters. That stipend hasn’t been raised since 2001, but the two sides could not reach an agreement on that particular issue.
The lack of incentive creates a “revolving door effect” at headquarters, the “nerve center” of BFD, where heavy-duty planning and “hardcore” management takes place, the source said.
“We’ve got an organizational problem that folks go to headquarters and they can make much more money working in a firehouse,” the source said. “They’re going to have an easier life working in a firehouse.”
The new contract “compares favorably” to the two prior agreements, 2017-18 and 2018-21, the official said. It is arguably more union-friendly, given that there are no givebacks, a term for concessions made by a labor union.
The Wu administration plans to pursue fire department reform in future collective bargaining agreements, the official said.
“It’s basically a cash deal, where we wanted to get everybody caught up from 2021,” the city official said. “This was really a catch-up deal to get people paid.”
The firefighters union filed for arbitration in April. The Joint Labor-Management Committee, which assists in resolving collective bargaining disputes involving municipalities and their police officers and firefighters, had taken jurisdiction, but the two sides were able to avoid mediation.
The city and its largest police union, however, are in arbitration.