Chambersburg Union President Disciplined Over Two Hatter Request
An IAFF union president from Pennsylvania has been disciplined for asking other IAFF members not to volunteer during their off-duty hours in his jurisdiction.
Chambersburg Fire Department Captain Patrick Martin, President of Greater Chambersburg Area Paid Fire Fighters Association, IAFF 1813, was suspended without pay for 240 working hours for his October 26, 2011 letter. Download a copy of the letter: Letter-from-Greater-Chambersburg-Area-Paid-Fire-Fighters-Association
The letter is pretty self-explanatory and was sent in response to the Chambersburg Borough Council’s proposal to reorganize fire protection and reduce career staffing. Chambersburg Borough Council voted anonymously to discipline Martin by suspending him for 240 hours without pay for “conduct unbecoming of an officer.” Here’s more on the discipline.
The case raises two overlapping sets of concerns – First Amendment and collective bargaining. Each of these concerns raise some complex legal issues.
From the First Amendment perspective, if President Martin’s comments are found to involve a matter of public concern, and he was speaking as a private citizen (which it certainly appears he was since he was acting as a union president when he wrote the letter not as a spokesperson for the fire department), the discipline might have to be overturned (it’s a bit more complicated than that… a little thing called the Pickering balancing test… and a line of cases that say that speech that is otherwise protected cannot cause actual harm to the FD… but you get the idea).
The collective bargaining issue is even more complicated. Pennsylvania’s Public Employee Relations Act (PERA) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with the exercise of concerted activities by unions. Arguably President Martin was punished for engaging in a legitimate collective bargaining activity (ie. he was communicating with fellow IAFF members over a matter of mutual concern), in which case the state labor board could set aside the discipline.
However, The PERA also makes it an unfair labor practice for a union to encourage an employed person to “engage in a strike” or refuse to “perform services” … which arguably the letter did. Thus the PERA could rule against President Martin because he was engaged in an unprotected/illegal activity.
Between the two – the First Amendment would trump the collective bargaining issue – assuming President Martin wins. The First Amendment is a US Constitutional issue and even if sending the letter was an unfair labor practice, he could not be punished for exercising his First Amendment rights. If President Martin loses his First Amendment claim, the unfair labor practice charge could go either way… it depends upon one’s perspective on collective bargaining.
Any thoughts out there?
He didn’t ask anyone to do anything but adhere to the bylaws of an association that they are members of. Where did he say that volunteers who aren’t IAFF members should refuse to respond? I suppose that the last part could be considered a “threat”, but it is directed towards members of his organization, who are not employed by Chambersburg. How can a city discipline him for making an appeal to members of his association, who have no duty to Chambersburg?
In the disciplinary actions, they claim that he has the ability to exercise authority over subordinate volunteer firefighters from other departments. How? And the “normal work” of the department relies on mutual aid? Why would any other community place itself on the hook for that?
The way I would interpret it, “normal work” means the surrounding departments normally would be able to assist Chambersburg via the pre-existing mutual aid agreements. Hence Martin’s request that IAFF members not respond would cause the outlying departments to be short-handed and would interfere with these departments ability to respond.
Basically the IAFF is saying “you should hold your career job to be more important than that oath you swore to your hometown to protect its citizens and their property.”
Career FF’s might be right for Chambersburg (but it sounds like they can’t afford them any more) but they aren’t necessarily right for every community. Shame on Martin for asking FF’s who – like it or not – are on volunteer departments to stay home when the tones go off. What if one of those volunteer FF’s gets hurt because they went short handed?
Finally, “Why would any community place itself on the hook for that?” Because the mayors/township boards/aldermen figure that their citizens will get enough fire protection to balance their desire to have low taxes if everyone chips in, everyone has a smaller volunteer/POC FD and everyone signs mutual and automatic aid agreements.
As a POC FF myself, I would love to be full-time and wish my town would see the value in having a full-time FD. So far they haven’t – they’d rather have low property taxes.
Maybe we FF’s should make our case better.
Or maybe the taxpayers really have thought it over and have decided against us.
Thanks Robert H
I think we need to draw a distinction between the position the Captain Martin took in his letter, and whether or not he should be (or can legally be) punished for it.
I may not agree with everything you believe, but I believe you have the right to say it – to communicate it to others, to advocate things you think are important.
I am concerned that because some may disagree with Captain Martin’s message, they agree he should be disciplined – but there is another aspect to be considered.
Robert,
People quit fire departments all the time, career or volunteer, does that violate their oath? If you want to talk about oaths, union members also take one in support of their union. Sorry to the hometown, but my ability to provide food for my family via a career position is more important than working for you for free.
“Shame on Martin for asking FF’s who – like it or not – are on volunteer departments to stay home when the tones go off. What if one of those volunteer FF’s gets hurt because they went short handed?”
And what if a Chambersburg firefighter gets hurt because staffing was reduced and created dependence on volunteers? Don’t forget he is elected to represent the concerns of Chambersburg firefighters, not the volunteers.
Our dept did just what Chambersburg wants to do-closed a truck co, sold the rig, and said call the second alarm when you need it and have the neighboring POC bring their ladder. Well, we just had a second alarm the other day, had our closed truck company been there the fire would have been out without the need for a second alarm, but we didn’t have enough hooks to get the ceiling open fast enough. The second alarm companies (POC) did not arrive until after our own call back personnel, even though they were called first. Meanwhile the duty crews were already on their third bottles. For want of 3 more people in the first 10 minutes, we needed 25 more an hour later, and wore out all of them. The POC ladder truck couldn’t even get down the street of the condo complex. Is that acceptable?
As for being on the hook-well, in our area, we already have a revolt against all the freeloaders. Cities are pulling out of mutual aid and auto aid agreements because they are responding so often to others that it is affecting their budgets and protection. Meanwhile, those depts receiving aid do not have enough resources to reciprocate. Maybe your plan works in the well to do and slow small towns, but not in busy urban areas.
hey there, back on topic::::
i under stand the point on the letter, he wants to city to make a choice, either staff it or don’t. And he is looking for support from other union members in the area that volly surrounding areas who respond as mutal aid. And the city discplined him for “”Encouraging, sanctioning, supporting and suggesting a secondary boycott that interferes with the normal work of the department.””
“””pera makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with the exercise of concerted activities by unions “”
“””However, The PERA also makes it an unfair labor practice for a union to encourage an employed person to “engage in a strike” or refuse to “perform services” … which arguably the letter did. Thus the PERA could rule against President Martin because he was engaged in an unprotected/illegal activity.””
the letter states that he is asking for support from people who are not employed but vollys or poc who have a choice to respond or not, now if he was asking paid career dept to do this, then i can see pera ruling against him.
we are “all of us, volly, poc, full time paid” dealing with funding issuses, that ain’t spelled right,, municpalities are having to make tough choices, when those choices are made then we will have to make choices too, how far do we push it at a fire when staffing is low.
How will FLSA figure into this? I think that the union president is really saving the CFD from a potential problem down the road.
Folks
Do you see a difference in asking all volunteers to stop volunteering, and asking brother and sister IAFF members to stop volunteering? Isn’t that kind of a big distinction to ignore?
Slightly off topic wa valid point in the discussion. In order to solidify manpower to NFPA 1710, re-hire laid off firefighters, or retain firefighters on the verge of dismissal fire departments are applying for AFG SAFER grants. clearly stated in the application is the stipulation that your department has a policy that doesn’t prohibit members hired under the grant from volunteerimg in other jurisdictions. So my point is, at which point does the union have to draw the line? Increase manpower and/or rehire firefighters or prohibit members from volunteering on off time. not an easy decision to make but clearly a result of depressed economic times.
Jason
Interesting point. I was not aware of the SAFER requirement – it’s good to know. But again, that is the type of info that tends to distract us from the real issue: should a fire department be allowed to punish a union president for writing a letter advocating that other IAFF members not volunteer.
The SAFER issue may be a concern if the FD were to adopt a policy restricting IAFF members from volunteering, or if the town enacted an ordinance restricting IAFF members from volunteering – or even if the union wanted such a restriction in their collective bargaining agreement. None of that is applicable here.
Also not relevant is whether IAFF members should serve as volunteers. What is at issue is free speech – the right to advocate a position, and the right of a union to take a position on a matter of vital importance to its members… and of course whether that advocacy crosses the line into a demand for an illegal strike/boycott.
so where is it at now?
As a neighboring department’s chief who is also an IAFF member, I feel I can provide some insight into this topic. As an IAFF member, you enjoy the benefits that come with such. 8 IAFF members who work for this city are facing losing their jobs. The city is doing this on the backs of the neighboring volunteers. They have not offered the neighboring departments any additional funding, so who is the winner and loser in this situation? I quit volunteering on any responses into that muni when all of this came about. I know how I would feel if I were looking at the possibility of losing my job, and my brother union members where the band aid the muni was using to make that possible. Until the public sees what these cuts could potentially mean to fire protection, nothing more will be said.
As I’ve told others, to put this into an all-volunteer perspective, my volunteer firehouse is 5 miles closer than the next. We’ve had a contract for fire protection in our municipality for as long as I can remember. What if that muni decided one day to basically bid out fire protection to the farther away company?(remember, tough economic times call for tough measures…) Shoot, maybe a mutual aid agreement will still be intact and they can continue to benefit from our response, for less money!
I know everyone is experiencing financial difficulties now adays, but to me the bottom line is, if you’re going to enjoy the benefits that come with being a part of a union, than you have to play by the rules, even when you don’t want to!
Thanks Tommy
I think the issue is even simpler: does a union president have a right to advocate a position on behalf of the union to other union members of the same international? PERIOD. The answer should be self-evident without even having the argue the logic that you suggest (which BTW I agree with).
If a union president can no longer advocate such a position in the United States – then we are in worse shape labor-wise than any other “free” country I am aware of. It is even more concerning that people are not looking at it as a question of whether a union has the right to take a position on the issue. They instead want to debate whether the union’s position issue is a good idea or bad idea. That is irrelevant – the question is should they be entitled to take the position – and I think they should.
“does a union president have a right to advocate a position on behalf of the union to other union members of the same international?”
Yes.
A neighboring city wanted to close several stations & have my FD pick up some of the slack. Their Local President asked our Local & our district’s board to take a stand against the city’s proposal, which we both did, & rightly so. It isn’t fair to the tax payers of our district to arbitrarily provide coverage to the city. That is what CFD is doing, cutting back on its paid force and asking outlying agencies to pick up the slack.
CFD’s Local President asking IAFF members who volunteer their off duty time to their home town VFD to not respond into his Local’s jurisdiction is totally legit. He is not advocating work stoppages, our even demanding they resign from their home town VFD. He is asking they not respond to his calls.
Ok, fine. Have the IAFF members stay in town to provide coverage, in case an emergency happens during the mutual aid call. “What happens if not enough other volunteers show up, and the outlying VFD can’t turn out for the mutual aid call then?” Too bad. If a municipality is going to rely on volunteers, sometimes there just aren’t enough.
The better thing to do is settle your own affairs instead of relying on someone else to do it for you.
Thanks for reading; hopefully I caught my autocorrect-induced typos.
Stay safe, & God bless.
Ken
The Union President will prevail on a First Amedment case or a Labor case. Clearly his right to free speech has been impinged by the Jurisdiction. There is no “Incitement” or immediate danger in the letter. He simply reminds other union members of thier responsibility
http://www.publicopiniononline.com/latestnews/ci_22506377/chambersburg-borough-found-have-committed-unfair-labor-practices