Friday Update 4-28-23
Updated On: May 30, 2023


 


Brothers & Sisters,

This week, the Board of Supervisors officially swore in Anthony Marrone as the tenth Fire Chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. 
 
After previously serving as our Interim Fire Chief for more than 11 months, the Board of Supervisors appointed Chief Marrone into the permanent role on February 28, 2023. 

With 39 years of experience in the fire service, Chief Marrone is a lifelong public servant and fire service professional. He leads one of the largest and most diverse fire departments in the world, providing traditional and non-traditional fire and emergency services to more than 4 million residents and communities in 60 cities and 122 unincorporated areas served by the Department. The Department operates out of 177 fire stations with 4,900 emergency responders and business professionals, operating within an annual budget of $1.6 billion.

We look forward to the work ahead. Local 1014 is committed to partnering with the Fire Chief to negotiate and agree on policy, practice, and procedure that helps our Department be the best it can be, including taking care of our members who do the work. 

Fire Chief Marrone's success is our success, and our success is the Department's success and most importantly success in serving our communities. So let us all join in Solidarity and Strength to get this place cleaned up and in top order as the Greatest Fire Department in the World. COUNTY! Local 1014 Strong!  
RESULTS FOR THE STAFFING SURVEY

Our first round of survey results are in! We want to thank everyone who took the time to respond and make suggestions for the next round of surveys. There was participation from every battalion. Your input is critically important to this process! 

With all the input that came back in, we will continue forward with the trial. Of the approximately 1289 people who engaged in the survey, 61% would like to continue the trial. We are well aware that summer will be the true test of how well this works for the masses or not. There has been positive feedback from some members with less-than-ideal staffing and negative feedback from some members with good staffing. However, the majority of those who wanted their voice heard have chosen to continue the trial. 

Local 1014 will continue to ask for your input. This is not the last survey we will do as the trial progresses! Please be prepared and look for the next survey during the summer. We encourage those members who do not currently get the Friday message to subscribe so you receive the next survey. If you are subscribed and didn’t get the survey, we encourage you to contact ssaporito@local1014.org. 

Once again, thank you to everyone who completed the survey and made their voice heard!
Click here to view full results.
Local 1014 met with the Department today in a labor-management collaboration to review the survey results and review the impact so far. The impact of these changes or any changes will constantly be evaluated collaboratively per our MOU to try and effect positive change. Thank you to Chief Deputy Jon O’Brien and Deputy Chief Ewald for your collaboration. 

Local 1014 and management continue to look at staffing changes we agree on to try and ease the pain for our members. Right now, there is a crisis, and the rank and file are being forced to carry the burden. We are trying to make it more palatable. If that doesn’t work, we will try something different and we will continue to try to make the best situation we can with the mess we have been given by the Department. 

At the end of the day the root cause of the problem is asses in the seats. The staffing crisis upon us at the Captains and Engineers rank was not created by Local 1014. 

Continuously, we have pushed for hiring, promoting and over hiring as much as possible. Letting off the pressure to hire and promote is not an option. If local 1014 could run exams and hire we would to ensure there is a constant pool of qualified personnel on a list at all times. 

For several months, Local 1014 has brought forward ideas for other temporary fixes to help ease the pain for our members. The Department has baulked at some of these ideas or said they can’t be done. For example lifting the overtime indefinitely, acting engineers with task books for proof of qualifications, and BC work downs to save recalls only. 

Part of the other serious issue we have is still 400 plus members off on industrial injury. Local 1014 along with management will continue to chip away at that number collectively to ensure we return people back to work healthy and sooner. 

If anyone feels like they are caught up in the workers comp system, we ask you again to ask for help. A couple months ago, we asked individuals to come forward who needed assistance in treatment, surgery, scheduling etc. and we only had two people come forward and ask for help. Thank you to those two individuals who came forward who now are receiving the treatment they need and are on an expedited path to return to work healthy. 

Workers comp has a spider web effect on our department. It is not only affecting our staffing but others members physical wellbeing, mental health, family time, and our budget. We ask once more those who need help with their workers comp cases please come forward. Do not rely on phone calls with your adjusters or Doctors. Put everything in emails with your assigned Captain from return to work.
48/96 UPDATE 

For a brief 48/96 update, the Fire Chief has not made a decision. Like all staffing related schedule changes or trials it’s a labor management agreement. He will be called to the carpet to do so. Avoiding the topic doesn’t make it go away.  

The Fire Chief was sworn in this week and officially has the con and the authority to make a decision to support or not support a 6-month 48/96 Trial.  We think the protection of 4-dayers trial and support for the 48/96 trial track with parallels and we have indicated to the Fire Chief, while we are never going to please everyone, the strong majority over time has leaned heavily towards the 48/96 trial, and in departments where they have had a trial, they have overwhelmingly voted to keep the schedule with high percentages over 70%.

Listen to the members Chief, and take the leap to be a leader of change and trial.  Be bold.  We will ask for his formal position in the next two weeks with time for him to finish the review and decide what his mark on this topic will be. 

Stay united, stay supportive of each other with respect for each others opinions and positions on topics and subjects at work.  Our professionalism and dedication to serving the communities we serve is the glue that binds.  Our people are the best in the business bar none, and we are powerful and passionate in all that we do at work, and on the Union front lines for legislation, work rules and contracts.  Let’s get folks back to work. 
Comp Time Update
 
Local 1014 is excited to announce that we have gotten confirmation from the Fire Department that our members can now accrue ten compensation days. However, please do not try to accrue hourly increments just yet. This is a process we have been hounding the Fire Department and the Auditor-Controller on, who ultimately have to do programming to ensure proper compensation.

We will let you know as soon as we have confirmation that the accrual in hourly amounts is programmed into our archaic system. It’s unacceptable that things happen at such a snail's pace. We will continue to push the snail faster to ensure accuracy and that things get done as quickly as possible.  Thank you for your continued patience. We will continue to update you on comp time as things change. 

In Solidarity, 

President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board 

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