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Brothers & Sisters,
In this, our final Friday Message for 2023, we want to take a moment and pause to highlight our amazing profession and our members and their families.
As this year closes, we have all been through highs and lows, and without question, we are heading in the right direction as we reset our Department on so many fronts to build the amazing LA County Fire Department that we all know.
As we close out 2023, Local 1014 Executive Board and staff members have been busy finishing up our work at the Capital, in our Local City Council Chambers, and at the Board of Supervisors to gain support for our issues. We also had our final interviews for State Assembly seats were with our brothers and sisters from LA City UFLAC Local 112, Burbank Airport Firefighters, and Cal Fire Local 2881, hosted by LA City Fire Local 112. We were very busy in the Fire Chief’s office working on our budget to include year three COLA, apparatus and equipment, hiring and promotions, and the continued improvement of our workers' compensation system to get folks back to work and keep them at work ensuring a better work-life balance with days off and reduced recalls.
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We have much to do in 2024, but we are on the right track with Chief Marrone engaged and negotiating to get things done, including going live with signature gathering for our 2024 ballot measure to add hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for stations, apparatus, equipment and four-person staffing as we work to stabilize and grow our budget. Chief Marrone has promised to address the membership on our trial 48/96 hour schedule proposal, and we look forward to his decision. As we have indicated, we need his support to implement this trial with the BOS at this time. Chief Marrone, hear the membership. We implore you.
Our fire stations were filled with laughter and sounds of family as we exchanged gifts and cooked meals to feed a village, all while being as busy as ever fighting massive fires, taking care of traffic collision victims, and helping the less fortunate. Our amazing members continued doing great things for the communities of LA County, including our work with the Spark of Love Toy Drive where in Pomona, after the big church fire, we showed up in mass with gifts and love to get things right, and in South Central at the Fire Factory a line for three hours with the most needy and less fortunate people in LA County there to receive Christmas gifts from our family.
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| Special thoughts and prayers to the Alkonis family this New Year as we continuously work to Bring Ridge Home. |
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| Taking care of our own has become part of our profession, and our PEER support and Chaplain team are the best in the nation. They finished their final year-end quarterly training with Dr. Steve and the Lifeguards. We continue to train and work to secure resources to help our members and their families is an all-year-long job. Thank you to the team for being there for all of us. If you have any peer support needs, please use this QR code on the posters in your stations to reach out. |
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CORRECTION: VACATION DAY POLICY REMINDER
Now that we are at the end of the year, we want to remind our members your Union fought to end the "use or lose" policy for vacation hours for our 20+ year employees. You might notice more excess vacation time on your pay warrant than usual.
As of this year, 2023, as solidified in our last MOU, days of use or lose vacation are over. Any excess vacation time can now be stored in an additional timekeeping bank. Any excess vacation will be stored as banked vacation on your paycheck when the sellback occurs in January 2024.
For pensionability purposes, only 240 hours or 10 shifts will be sold back for an employee's Ventura and highest year. Anyone with excess above 240 up to 300 in excess will get that excess automatically placed into a banked vacation on their pay warrant in January during the automatic sell-back process of excess time accrual.
The Union has been all over the Fire Department and Auditor-Controller to ensure that the process will happen. They both have assured us that it will. Now, only time will tell.
When using banked vacation days in IPFIRS it shall be coded as “BV”. Another positive of not losing the vacation time is those additional vacation days will hold all the rights and privileges of or other vacation days. This will also help our members doing a higher year take an annual vacation with the ability to utilize “BV” days without affecting their sell-back of vacation days for their highest year.
Finally, for those of you who suffered a loss from the "use or lose" vacation time, you are not forgotten. We are actively suing the Department to fight for our members that have been harmed. As that process unfolds, we will update everyone with additional details. |
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Thank you to all of our members for your amazing work and unending compassion and empathy for all we serve. Thank you to your families for being a part of the Fire Family and making this year’s end special in every way we could.
We wish you and your families a Happy and Blessed New Year! 2024 will be amazing for us all, with our continued hard work and solidarity of spirit. |
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In Solidarity,
President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board |
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