By Jim Daws
President, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 134
For the Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — The closure of seven Atlanta fire companies and five fire stations last Sunday was not the result of any “blue flu” or Super Bowl-related malingering.
It was the result of the Fire Rescue Department being stripped of any tools it needs to cope with normal and expected fluctuations in employee sick leave.
For some to blame the firefighters, who are bearing the brunt of the city’s dire economic circumstances, while taking great personal risks to deliver on their mission to protect life and property, is outrageously unfair.
This year’s budget cuts to Atlanta Fire Rescue abolished 120 firefighter positions, declared a hiring freeze in the face of unprecedented attrition, eliminated all overtime used to achieve safe staffing levels and instituted furloughs equal to 10 percent of work hours.
To adjust, Fire Rescue shuttered four fire companies and two fire stations for the remainder of the fiscal year, staffed its trucks with just three firefighters instead of the minimum industry safety standard of four, and began 24-hour station closures during staffing shortages.
In order to avoid these 24-hour closures, no more than 13 firefighters can be out on sick leave.
But 13 is just an average number, and sick leave has always fluctuated. Normally, the department would have the flexibility to hire overtime or to reduce staffing on the trucks to cover any shortage created by this fluctuation.
Since there is no overtime and the trucks are already below minimum staffing, that is no longer an option.
The spike in sick-leave use last Sunday amounted to just 2 percent of the work force --- hardly a “blue flu.” For seven fire companies to close as a result is just an illustration of how thin firefighters are stretched.
For Fire Rescue to keep all its remaining stations open on a daily basis under these circumstances would actually require firefighters to reduce their use of sick leave.
Given that firefighters have suffered 18 percent pay cuts, are working two and three jobs to provide for their families and are operating at staffing levels that prevent them from performing their duties in an effective and reasonably safe manner, I think that is an unrealistic expectation.
Copyright 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution