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Brothers & Sisters,
Congratulations to our newest Engineers and Captains on their promotions! We are changing the guard in all ranks to some extent. Great brothers and sisters, some legends have been “hanging it up” lately, and the trend will continue for a bit, given the age of our members. This is an exciting time for all.
For those stepping into Paramedic roles or Engineer roles on their front end and mid-career of their journey, it is exciting to assume the primary EMS role on the scene, especially for critical ALS calls with a good partner and crew. We have the greatest paramedic program in the world, and to be a part of history as you prepare for your LA County Fire career path is an honor. Also, becoming an LA County “Straw Boss” is an amazing step to becoming a captain. The “Straw-Boss” rides next to the Captain on the rigs and also helps set the tone in the station with all we do in between calls. There can be no better training to command than to shadow the commander. In a perfect world, our members would spend a little time as firefighters, then five years as medics, and five years as engineers.
We are working on setting pay for 5-year medics going to engineer at a rate that doesn’t lower their annual earnings potential and to set AP points so that five years as a medic gets you most of the points needed for Captain, and five years as Engineer to be equal to PM. If you are a medic for five years and an engineer for five years, all the boxes have been checked, and the points should reflect that. Combine that with CICCS classes and classes that impact the jobs, and we will be in the place we need to be for testing. Much work has been done to improve the testing process, with more coming, and we again thank training services for helping us find that path and, in some cases, do battle with DHR on our process. Local 1014 has also demanded, and now we have a true collaboration on the academies that prepare our new promotees to hit the field. Engineers and Captains are given the basics about their next step, leaving behind the ways of “good luck - call a friend” as you take your new seat.
Thank you to Chief Marrone for staying committed to this critical training. So say hi to the new promotees in the field and give them a hand in learning their new crafts, and watch the list of growing retirees hanging up their turnout coats at LAO and come on up to support them. The new Facebook group, "Hanging It Up - LACOFD RETIREMENT EVENTS" has been a great way to connect for retirement events, including turnout coat hang-ups at LAO. Watch for the Department's annual retirement event and the museum retiree recognition events also helping those leaving know that they are forever a part of our LACoFD family is important.
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DRIVING ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS
Recently, we have seen the impact of emergency driving accidents, with a couple of our own narrowly escaping tragedy as Squad 93 was in a head-on accident. This is not the first accident our Department has seen, and it won’t be the last. Our incidents of accidents on squads, engines, and trucks vary greatly, and some of the accidents are minor and some very impactful on our members and the expensive equipment we are in charge of. The Engines and Trucks and Squads are vital and critical parts of our serving the public equation, every bit as much as the personnel on the apparatus responding to the thousands and thousands of calls each year, some on recalls to duty. We can’t help if we don’t get there.
Historically, injuries to firefighters occur when responding to and from incidents, accounting for nearly 25% of our injuries. This is substantial, and we should all understand that simple things like wearing a seat belt and sitting correctly in the jump seats make a difference. We train on how to spot an apparatus at the scene to protect our personnel, and we have seen that make a difference on streets and the freeway with cars impacting our rigs and the rig positioning, saving our personnel. We also can help train our personnel in the art of defensive driving for emergency responders, and the Department has been promising a training program for all of our drivers. Yet, we have seen nothing for years now except an out-of-touch, frankly bullshit online training program in EVOC that makes no impact on our members other than adding online training stress to our lives with a program that tortures our members.
The Department has a responsibility to provide and ensure the best training for our profession, including responding to emergencies, and as of now, they are getting an “F” grade in training our members in driving techniques. There was a time when we had a VARB vehicle accident review board and a group of peers who reviewed accidents to provide recommendations on how the accident could have been avoided. We also have had driver enrichment where accidents and personnel driving apparatus in accidents were reviewed, and training and education rather than discipline was the course of action. Enter in the big county and little county attorneys and untrained risk managers who likely have never walked a moment in our shoes for responses to see how we respond truly and the conditions we face each day going to and from an emergency, and now we have the “Request for Written Statement” for accidents. A multi-question, question-on-top-of-question poorly constructed, poorly written document must make every manager proud of the top-end work. Most of the Chief Officers at the BC rank we spoke with agree with rank and file with the absurdity of the accident process.
We are calling on the Department and on the Fire Chief to get this training in place and make it a priority to protect our members and work environment and create a safer protection of our apparatus. As of now, the Department has reverted back to punitive actions and “hopes and wishes” that things get better, ignoring the fact that MOST ALL ACCIDENTS are just that, ACCIDENTS and prevention occur with training and education and only a small fraction of the incidents can be characterized as 100 percent preventable or careless or harmful in scope.
If you get the ridiculous “REQUEST FOR WRITTEN STATEMENT” for an accident, call for representation to prepare the response. The accident report usually has almost all the information the department asks for in the RFWS and is redundant, only designed to get you to answer differently than your accident statement. As we work on this, be aware the Risk Management team from big county, is all about blame and showing discipline is in place nothing about training and education. Protect yourself and call for a rep.
CALIFORNIA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS, CALIFORNIA FIRE FOUNDATION AND STATE BOARD OF FIRE SERVICES UPDATE FROM THE CAPITOL
The past few weeks and heading into the next few, your Executive Board, along with the Union Boards of Local Affiliates represented by the California Professional Firefighters, have convened in Sacramento and now at local district meetings up and down the state to ensure solidarity and strength in the work to protect and advance our issues within the state legislature, the Governor's office and our local elected offices as we move into the next year of legislative advocacy and political action.
Without question, our involvement in politics and legislative work is imperative to not only protect our members and advance our interests within acts of law and policy but also to battle with our managers through Cal Chiefs and Metro Chiefs with our very own AOC officers in tow to ensure budget monies come our way. It is not easy to always line it up and gain the support the way we want, as we occasionally compete with law enforcement. Sometimes we don’t line up with all of the labor or the business community, such as the insurance industry, but staying relevant for passing our agenda and amending and protecting our members with other moving businesses is critical. The state budget affects Cal Fire Local 2881 and all other municipal departments, including the ‘37 Act Counties like us. This year, we have a special ‘37 Act Committee and a Contract Counties Committee to work on issues that affect our members, such as our effort to repeal age 57 for retirement to 55. We will need our alliances and all the work to get votes to support items like this.
The CPF and California Fire Foundation Board met this month to go over convention resolutions and review planning for the upcoming legislative session with goals for our work. President Gillotte will go back up to Sacramento in the next couple of weeks to represent the state firefighters in giving testimony to the House Select Assembly and Senate Committees and to the Governor on issues affecting the Homeless and Drug and Alcohol Addiction crisis our members face, and the work at the state level to stem this epidemic with layers of telemedicine and alternative transport destination and verbal and physical violence our members experience.
President Gillotte chairs the California Fire Service Task Force on Behavioral Health, and with the amazing work of the committee. Local 1014 will give testimony that helps shape the legislator's thinking on funding and necessity items like conservatorship and mandated movement of patients to facilities for treatment until they are well, or in some cases, permanently for those too far gone. We know all too well that patients we run on are “dying with their rights pinned to their chest” sometimes and that they live at standards on the street less than wild animals as their mental illness and addiction take control of every breath they take. We’ll keep you posted as this progresses, but part of our drive to legalize permanently the use of telehealth and transport to alternative destinations other than the emergency room to break the cycle and get people the help they need mentally and about addiction.
The California Fire Foundation met with the contractors and architects to review the plans to expand the California Fire Fighter Memorial in Capitol Park, Sacramento. The aggressive expansion that is needed to accommodate our names has been approved by the Board, taking into account the many aspects of tradition, the memorial as it is today, and incorporating all of this into the vision of the expansion. Keeping the traditions of our panels with names engraved where families can touch and feel their loved ones, where crews can reflect on their brother or sisters' time with them, and movement of the sculptures and the new panels to accommodate not only the future but an interactive and beautiful flow into the memorial and from all sides has Ben carefully taken into account in our final approval.
We look forward to breaking ground and keeping you all updated as we take this journey. You can follow along also at https://www.cafirefoundation.org/. |
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The State Board of Fire Services is a governor-appointed commission-confirmed body that sits over codes and regulations, state fire service training, and CICCS. Local 1014 through President Gillotte, has a vote and a seat on the commission, along with other fire service labor leader and management group leaders.
In this committee, we review codes and ordinances such as those affecting Energy Storage Systems like lithium-ion batteries both in homes and vehicles, as well as CNG and other new and emerging technologies that affect the safety of our members none more serious than what we saw this last week with our brothers from LAFD - UFLAC 112 avoiding disaster with an exploded 100 gallon CNG fuel tank. We are pushing to have UL test situations to drive legislation for providing types of contain and mock-up firers, placarding, labeling, and more concerning these energy storage systems. We are seeing more and more on our fires.
This work is critical, and the Fire Chief, through Cal Chiefs, also has a hand in the work in collaboration with our subject matter experts within our department and the relationships they have within UL to get it all done. This work at the Capitol and beyond, with your Union, the Local Affiliate Unions, and Department Fire Chiefs from throughout California, protects and advances our professional issues, and we will keep you updated as the work progresses in this legislative and budgetary cycle for 2024. |
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Final Staffing Survey
We currently have over 1,100 responses to the survey! We still have a week left to make your voice heard.
Captains, encourage your members to take the survey in your morning lineup. Please check your spam and junk folders diligently, and be sure to complete the survey. If anyone in your stations has yet to sign up for the Friday Updates on the website, encourage them to do so and take the survey.
Feel free to call any Local 1014 Director or the staffing committee members if you have any questions about the survey. Thank you to all our members during this trial period for your patience and your input to improve our system so it works for everyone.
If you have checked your spam folder and still have not received the email, please email ssaporito@local1014.org. |
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| LA County Fire Safety Measure |
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Local 1014 continues aggressively moving forward on the signature gathering for our ballot initiative to secure more funding for our Department, including staffing, infrastructure, apparatus, and equipment. We are currently gathering signatures in locations throughout the district.
REMINDER: If you get questions while in the field working or calls at the station, you can confirm there is a citizen's initiative for additional funding for the LA County Fire District. You can also direct them to the website above or any Local 1014 Executive Board member.
If someone approached you in the station asking for firefighters to gather signatures or sign petitions, do not accept. Get their name and ask them to leave the station.
We have a lot of work to do to secure those votes, but together, we can win for the future of our Department and our families. Thank you all in advance for your consideration of our collective efforts.
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In Solidarity,
President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board |
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