What The UFA Deal Means

The Uniformed Firefighters' Association contract agreement announced last Friday night immediately triggered speculation about how it might affect the Bloomberg administration's deadlocked talks with the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

The answer, at least for the moment, appears to be: not at all.

PBA President Pat Lynch reacted to the UFA deal by noting that it covers a work force which has not suffered from either a recruiting problem or a major gap in wages when compared to neighboring jurisdictions - two linked problems affecting the NYPD and his members.

He seems determined to go ahead with what has already been a heated arbitration process, with a dispute currently headed for court on whether the city had the right to designate the panel's chairman once the PBA refused to participate in the selection process.

Unless Mr. Lynch suddenly feels added pressure to reach a quick settlement from a rank and file that is working under a contract that expired in the summer of 2004, the UFA pact - which still must be ratified by its members - would have no effect on his arbitration. That is because it covers a period beyond the two-year stretch that is the maximum the PBA arbitration panel can issue an award for unless both sides consent to an extended deal.

Barring an outcry by Police Officers, they are likely to have to wait until late this year or beyond while their union leader tries in arbitration to undo more than a century of salary parity between them and Firefighters. In the interim, senior cops would - assuming the UFA deal is ratified - be earning 15 percent less than Firefighters as of Aug. 1, when the second 4-percent raise under the tentative pact will take effect.

Those raises are roughly consistent with the terms the Bloomberg administration has reached during the past nine months with unions including District Council 37 and the United Federation of Teachers. Other portions of the pact - which the Mayor said raise the value of the deal to an average of 10 percent - reward Firefighters in specialized assignments and move starting salary closer to where it was prior to the last contract, when UFA President Steve Cassidy was forced to accept a sharply reduced pay scale for future Firefighters to match the wage gains the PBA received in its June 2005 arbitration.

Under the deal, Firefighters assigned to HazMat and Rescue Companies (about 440 in all) would receive an added 12-percent differential effective July 1 - the same pay rate that is already given to Fire Marshals (who at the end of the contract July 31, 2008 would get an $1,100 increase in their annual uniformed allowance).

Another 360 Firefighters working as company Chauffeurs or Tillermen (the ones who steer from the back of the small number of hook-and-ladder trucks still in use in some neighborhoods) would get a 3-percent increase in their differentials as of Sept. 1.

Mr. Cassidy noted that UFA presidents had been seeking the special assignment differential for more than two decades. It acknowledges monetarily what until now has been recognized only in the form of prestige: that the HazMat and Rescue Companies are members of elite units. It also puts them on comparable financial footing with their Police Officer counterparts in the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit, who receive the same pay rate as Detective Specialists.

While the raise in starting pay was couched as a 40-percent increase worth $10,000 by the Bloomberg administration, that's primarily an attempt to banish the negative connotations of the old $25,100 rate that new Firefighters earned during their 13 weeks of Fire Academy training. Upon graduation, they jumped to the basic first-year rate of $32,700, which meant their first-year pay actually totaled $30,800. Since the new rate won't rise at the end of the now-23-week Academy period, the real, if less-dramatic, increase is $4,200, or 13.6 percent.

New Firefighters will have to pay a price for that pay bump, however. They will be paid for six fewer holidays in each of their first five years on the job (like all Firefighters, they don't actually receive holidays off but get extra compensation for those days), have their night-shift differential cut to half the normal rate over that period, and lose a significant amount of annuity money during their first five years on the job.

On the bright side for them, as well as current Firefighters who were hired under the reduced pay scale, they would move to top salary after five years, rather than the 5-1/2-year progression under the previous contract. For all Firefighters, that would be $65,841 if the tentative deal is ratified, and would rise to $68,475.

Other key gains were an increase as of Sept. 1 of $1,000 in longevity differentials, which currently start at $2,000 for five years' service and rise by $1,000 for each additional five years up to 20, and a drug prescription card. To help limit the city's costs, the UFA agreed to forego an increase in city welfare fund contributions for active members and got just an $80 annual hike for retiree members.

While several facets of the tentative pact are unique to Firefighters and the jobs that they do, it has the potential to provide a useful basis for the other uniformed unions to reach settlements, either as a coalition or individually.

In the short term, however, we wouldn't count on one of those groups being the PBA.

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