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Brothers and Sisters,
A Legend retires again! Local 1014 Health and Welfare Trustee retires for the third time! Brother John Bishop, who, 50 years ago this year, realized his dream of becoming a firefighter with the Covina Fire Department. Brother Bishop quickly took to leadership in Covina’s union world working as an Executive Board member, bringing in the votes and the Department into LA County Fire Protection District as a contract city. Once at the County, John quickly moved to work busy stations and eventually went into the camps to lead our crews.
John joined the Local 1014 Executive Board and went to work to better conditions for our members. He was part of our negotiations team in particular through the years, resulting in our COLA raises but also of note, the Pilots' schedule and subsequent pay increases, making them some of the highest-paid pilots in the industry, and the EMT bonus for FSA’s along with the lateral “internal promotional” test route we created for hiring our own to Firefighter. John eventually retired as a FFS from the job and the Union as an Executive Board Member. He then served on our Local 1014 Health and Welfare Trust, where, for many years, he has worked to help craft our move to increase dental, vision, and mental health benefits and to keep the plan well-funded heading into the future.
We want to thank Brother John Bishop for his selfless service to our membership and families, and we wish him well into the next chapter of his life, likely starting in Bishop fishing for trout somewhere off the grid. Congratulations, John, and we are going to miss you and smile.
We also want to thank Brother Chris Reade for stepping into the Trustee role with a young Captain and family perspective as we move forward. Chris and his family have an extensive history with our plan. He brings a fantastic view of benefits and uses for active duty members and their families. We look forward to his part in making the Trust the best plan available for our members year after year. Welcome, Brother Reade.
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DISCIPLINE / INVESTIGATIONS / REQUEST FOR WRITTEN STATEMENTS
Our members and the Union have noticed a move once again by the Department to a heartless, soulless approach to discipline and internal investigations. The County Guide to Discipline and all contemporary guides, standards, and laws, such as the Firefighter Bill of Rights, all layout that discipline is supposed to be corrective action necessary to change behavior. This can be accomplished by education and training and in some instances with punitive discipline where the punishment fits the offense. The Department has strayed back to a place they have been before, and likely for the same reasons of outside influence by County Counsel and by non-sworn managers having unfettered oversight of processes, wording, and levels of discipline, with Bureau Chiefs signatures onto paper like an automated signature machine signing autographs.
We have seen investigations and interviews start to shape up like “Interrogations” again, with ex-law enforcement folks influencing the processes. The resulting disciplinary decisions and accompanying letters reach a new low, completely missing the mark of connecting with the employee and making marked changes in behavior where needed. The move away from training and into punitive discipline for minor offenses has also seen a rise out of PPS with harmful language about character, dedication, and lack of commitment to the Department having nothing to do with the actual offense.
In addition, we took many calls about Request for Written Statements – the seemingly standard check-the-box solution for fact gathering often redundant to questions already asked or reports already generated such as accident reports. All of this seems to be once again driven by third-party influence with County Counsel and subject matter experts who know nothing about our job or the members serving. One such discipline letter had details of a decedent on a response that was personal with pictures and news articles about this person's family, almost as if to scar and harm our member in addition to questioning the details of the call. This is unacceptable. Our position has always been that a Sworn Chief Officer must be in charge at the highest level to use all the subject matter experts and coordinate a compassionate, fair, job-appropriate action to “correct behavior” without kicking someone while they are down.
Chief Marrone has done many things to improve our working conditions. As we move forward on many paths of travel, the Disciplinary System is another path that demands his attention now as the leader. We are confident we will find some common ground.
IN THE MEANTIME, WE IMPLORE OUR MEMBERS TO SEEK UNION REPRESENTATION EARLY AND OFTEN CONCERNING ANY INVESTIGATIONS, INTERROGATIONS, CPOE COMPLAINTS, REQUEST FOR WRITTEN STATEMENTS, AND INTENT TO DISCIPLINE LETTERS BEFORE YOU MEET OR RESPOND TO THE DEPARTMENT. YOU HAVE RIGHTS.
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| We want to congratulate Brother Frank Lima of UFLAC 112 – Los Angeles City Firefighters on his daughter Lucia “Lulu” Lima’s graduation from LA City’s Drill Tower. Brother Lima is a long-time friend of Local 1014 with Union projects, including political and legislative advocacy and also Fire Ground Survival, PEER Support, and Cancer research and training. We also had two of our FSAs graduate from the Tower, and Camp 9 attended the graduation to pay tribute to their brothers. |
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HEALTH SUMMIT A SUCCESS
Thank you to our Peer Support Team and Chaplains and the Los Angeles County Firefighters Association for bringing together an amazing panel of speakers to once again contribute to our tools in the box to deal with the stressors of our Job. The one-day Health Summit was held at our amazing Museum in Bellflower with attendees from LA County Fire, LA City Fire, and departments and unions from throughout the state. The event was also sponsored by Local 1014 and the AOC with Presidents Gillotte and Chapman in attendance.
This summit featured speakers who addressed resiliency, martial arts, powerlifting, and other physical means of finding balance, meditation, and breathing, overhauling your life not just fires, and the Back Your Badge Program which the union and department are embracing and supporting to help with ensuring our families are taken care of if one of us becomes an LODD. Excellent conversation and presentations by Brothers Evan Halquist, Dave Tebo, Bryan Andrews, and Garrett Barker. Special guest Travis Howze, a US Marine, Police Officer, and Firefighter closed out our day with a discussion on post-traumatic stress, trauma exposure, burnout, and communications during such events to find help.
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In Solidarity,
President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board |
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