Firefighters union and city agree on contract

An arbitration panel has awarded a one-year contract to the firefighters union, providing raises but decreasing the amount paid per member into the union health-care fund.

Both Mayor Nutter and Brian McBride, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said in a statement that they had accepted the contract.

"Even as the city faces significant fiscal challenges we accept this award as a fair deal for the taxpayers of this city, and a fair deal for the firefighters and paramedics who risk their lives every day to keep Philadelphians safe," Nutter said in the statement.

Local 22 - the last of the four city unions to reach a contract - is getting a deal similar to the one the Fraternal Order of Police received in June.

Firefighters will receive a 2 percent raise, effective retroactively to July 1 and a 2 percent raise effective Jan. 1. City-paid health-care contributions per member will be lowered from $1,444 to $1,270 per month. The the city says the lower figure will cover existing benefits.

The total cost of the award for the roughly 2,400 firefighters and paramedics is $3.5 million for this fiscal year, according to the city.

Because uniformed employees in Pennsylvania can't strike, the police and fire unions negotiate contracts through arbitration.

The police union, which typically is one of the last contracts settled, this year struck a deal first. That union agreed in July to a one-year contract with a 3.5 percent raise and a reduction in annual city-paid health-care costs from $1,303 for each member to $1,165.

District Council 33, the largest city union, followed two weeks later, agreeing to a one-year contract with $1,100 signing bonuses for its 9,400 blue-collar workers, no raises and no changes in health-care contributions.

District Council 47, which represents 3,400 white-collar workers, signed a contract in August, also receiving $1,100 bonuses, no raises and no changes in health-care costs.

Nutter broke with convention to seek one-year contracts with the four municipal unions, pushing for time to find savings in the city's contribution to the union health-care plans.

Like the three other unions, firefighters have agreed to participate in a city health-care committee that will examine how to maintain benefits while bringing down costs. *