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Brothers and Sisters,
More than 25% of Fire Fighter injuries and deaths occur while responding to and from emergencies. We know all too well how dangerous it is to respond to calls in Los Angeles County and everyone was reminded when Engine 95 was t-boned in an intersection when a car traveling at an extremely high rate of speed slammed into the pump panel. The engineer driving was able to not only steer the engine to have the car hit the pump panel and not the doors of the cab, but also keep the engine on all fours when it came to rest. Our personnel were suffered some physical. Our members were treated and released from the hospital and had Union and peer support representation as the investigation unfolded. We are grateful that our Local 1014 members were not seriously injured. However, incidents like these remain with our members long after the call is over.
Chief O Brien and President Gillotte, who were on duty when the incident occurred, met first thing at Station 95 to work together to help the injured and impacted members. Also, Director Jason Cervantes, Chief Gunther from RTW and Chief Gigi Gonzales were engaged with PEER Support and Dr Steve Froehlic to aid our members and their families with needed care.
Please let this be a reminder to us all to be careful when responding to an incident and use all your training and safety gear, such as seat belts whenever and wherever you can. We are lucky to have our folks in good shape on this near miss, and we will continue to support our members post-incident with their needs. |
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OPERATIONS UPDATE
Local 1014 continues to pursue operational solutions to help our members and fill our ranks to help with the staffing and injury numbers. Local 1014 took after the Department upon learning that almost 60 FSAs hired off the FFT list were left behind when conditional offers of employment were not given to them and the FFT list expired. Local 1014 met with Chief Marrone, and laid out a case for the inferred offer of employment as FFTs that we believed was implicit, and also our path to pursue this administratively and legally while we held up any new hiring processes, some of which were moving forward. The FFPM lateral test we laid into and is now at a grinding halt, and the new test that was moving forward was also halted while we work to get FCTC written exam in place for the cognitive portion of our test. We negotiated with Chief Marrone, earning his support for our plan, and he went to work to reinstate the hiring list to make eligible the FSAs we identified in this predicament. We are now nearing ALL of the FSAs receiving conditional or formal offers of employment for FFT and they will have been in Classes 170, 171, or 172. This is a remarkable win and we thank Chief Marrone for working with us on this very important issue to hire some of the best in the business from our own Local 1014 represented FSAs.
We also have gone to work to add additional Dispatchers with a labor management team built from Chief Eleni Papas and her crew and Vice Presidents Kobler and Carciopplo and their team to identify data, statistics, call wait times as well as call volume growth to justify and lay out a plan to hire more dispatchers. The plan laid out by Chief Papas and VP’s Carciopplo and Kobler would add 19 new Dispatchers over time with 3 of them in admin spots and the other 16 on the front lines taking calls and dispatching. This week another meeting between Chief Marrone, Chief Papas and VP’s Kobler and Carcioppolo netted a negotiated partnership for Chief Marrone to find and use existing budget to hire 8 of the 16 Dispatchers needed, and to move 40 hour admin dispatchers back to the front lines to get an initial move to grow the numbers to where we need them. This would be 8 new and additional positions as fast as we can process them. The Union and the Department are also moving to get our dispatch services recognized by the BOS and CEO as regional and multi functional for the County based on the work for regional response and to earn County monies to provide more dispatchers for the work load. Again thank you to Chief Papas for working to identify the need and how to meet it, and to Chief Marrone for embracing the plan and supporting the efforts to move forward.
Getting our members seen, treated and healed to get back to work has also been a task force project and the results have been amazing. With the first “50 back to work” we netted 27 and some lifeguards as well which also helps our budget and their operations. We are now into the next batch of 50 members we are working to advocate, lobby and resource them to expedite diagnosis, treatment and care for their injuries.
If you have a situation where you cannot get treatment or are stuck in the system, please get ahold of the return to work Captains or Chief or Jason Cervantes at the Local to identify what your situation is and let us move the obstacles to your return to work. Thank you to the return-to-work team for their hard work on behalf of this project, and also know that we have met with the third-party provider to layout expectations of how they handle and process our claims. They have responded amazingly well, as we let them know they work for us, our members. We will continue to work at batches of 50 members and work on guiding Sedgwick to ensure our members are getting treated and returned to work properly and expeditiously. This not only helps with our staffing and recalls as we have seen a dramatic reduction in recalls, but also aids the budget and stabilizes our raises and benefits we negotiated for. We are not out of the woods, and we must continue to hire and promote, and return injured workers back to the field, as some battalions in certain ranks are still being hit with shortages of bodies for the spots to be filled. Thank you to everyone who has been working to get this done and we will continue to move the needle until we are back to normal numbers of vacancies and people off due to injury.
LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS IN SACRAMENTO
Your Board continues to lobby and advocate on behalf of our member issues in Sacramento and the two benchmark bills we want to highlight are Senate Bill 623 (Laird), which would extend our PTSI presumption and add public safety dispatchers along with other Law enforcement positions and extend their presumption sunset by 7 years, and Assembly Bill 1020 (Grayson) which deals with 37 Act counties and the determination of disability retirement. The bill would clarify items such as stand by time and other such complicated add-ons and their eligibility.
As of now it looks like SB 623 has cleared the Senate floor and heads to the assembly for a concurrence vote and then on to the Governor for a signature. We will lobby and monitor that vote. AB 1040 is meeting with resistance to add more positions and job specifications into the PTSI presumption without data and demonstrated experience for such positions, maily the positions on the law enforcement side. Amendments to bills are crafted to try and meet the needs of all those who will support and the interests driving the bills. PTSI presumption will likely be amended to remove and extend the 7 year sunset, and to define public safety dispatchers and specifically commission a study to collect the data needed to move them into the PTSI presumption in the next leg session.
We will be working closely with the Legislature and Governor if this is the course to ensure our own LA County Public Safety Dispatchers are not only part of the study, but the core. We have been lobbying this change to include the dispatchers to the law and we will continue to take the lead to get the information needed and will work to move them in solely in the next Leg session without any other job titles or specifications in the bill. This is a long and ardous process and you can follow along and watch the movement here at leg info. |
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FIREFIGHTER APPRECIATION NIGHT – LOS ANGELES COUNTY DODGERS!
On Monday, September 11th the Los Angeles Dodgers will host a Firefighter Appreciation Night with many of our members in attendance. There will be special t-shirts and recognition of our service on the screens in the field. We look forward to a bit of FIRE FAMILY time as we join other members from the region to cheer on the Dodgers in their bid to win another World Series.
This special event ticket package includes your ticket to the game and an exclusive Firefighter Appreciation Night item. Ticket information: Firefighter Appreciation Night.
2023 Group Ticket Information:
• Group minimum is just 15 tickets.
• Flexible and discounted general seating for most games and group
sizes throughout the stadium.
• Waived Per Ticket Fees so you can bring out more family and friends.
• Special Event Ticket Packages are available for select dates.
• Complimentary Dodgers Ribbon Board message to shout out your group.
• Learn more here: LA Dodgers Groups.
Contact Inside Sales Representative Mylah Smiley at mylahs@ladodgers.comfor more information regarding Group Sales.
Additionally, there will be a California Professional Firefighters night on 9/22 and some of our members were lucky enough to get into the ticket block and we will join them as well to spend some quality time at the Ravine!
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Support our Brothers and Sisters in Monterey Park
On October 14th, the first annual Monterey Park Firefighters Relief Fund Pickleball Tournament will be held in Barnes Park! Monterey Park Firefighters, our Local 1014 members, are hosting this tournament to raise money for the non-profit Monterey Park Firefighters Relief Fund, which provides services to MP Firefighters during hardship and adversity brought on by illness and serious injury. They also provide counseling and other forms of support. Pick up a paddle and get ready for some pickle to help us raise money!
Click below to sign up today! |
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LACOFD CENTENNIAL YEARBOOK
As we celebrate the Department’s historic 100th anniversary in 2023, the Yearbook Committee has extended the deadline for Department and retired personnel to purchase a Centennial Yearbook. A preview of the Centennial Yearbook cover can be found in the attachment. Centennial Yearbooks are available to all personnel to purchase at their own expense on the LA County Fire Foundation Store webpage.
This is a profound benchmark in our history, as we celebrate our legacy in the fire service as we pay tribute to the many generations of team members who have proudly served with honor and bravery and paved the way for the next 100 years in the Department’s history. behalf of our Department and our members who boldly serve our communities. |
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In Solidarity,
President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board |
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