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Brothers & Sisters,
Today President Gillotte joined LA City Local 112 President Escobar, and members of the LA City Council and Supervisor Barger from the 5th District to show bipartisan support for Senate Bill 915.
The Teamsters Union, our partners is so many things, needed our help and today we stood shoulder to shoulder with or Brothers and Sisters whose jobs are threatened by autonomous vehicles. The bill seeks to add restrictions and rules for autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles to provide local government control over regulation and increased safety mechanisms. San Fransisco has opted into the robo-taxi trials and there have already been 70 plus incidents of the driverless vehicles blocking fore engines, collisions, and internet access failures resulting in cars stopped atop hose lines on active fires.
Thank you to Senator Cortese, Supervisor Barger, LA City Council, the LA Labor Federation and the Teamsters Union for pulling us together on this important issue.
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IAFF Affiliate Leadership Training Summit (ALTS)/Human Relations Conference
This week, members of our Executive Board attended the Affiliate Leadership Training Summit (ALTS)/Human Relations Conference. Unions from around the country converged to work in a trade training and educational seminar with intense workshops and information sessions that prepare our union leaders to advocate on your behalf and on behalf of the issues facing our profession.
The conference kicked off with our brother from LA City, GST Frank Lima sharing his experience growing up in the fire service and union, various members were honored with the Generals’ Award for Excellence in Leadership, and keynote speaker Erin Jones took the stage and delivered a powerful speech about kindness.
“It feels like there are so many fires burning in the world right now and that can feel overwhelming, and this is what I challenge people: just be kind. It does not cost anything,” said Jones.
Finally at the conference, we as a union recommitted to fighting PFAS, “forever chemicals”, exposure in the job, especially in our turnouts. The IAFF has assembled a team of toxic tort law firms to fight for our members. PFAS chemicals have been linked to cancer and other illnesses. Currently all three layers of firefighters turnouts contain PFAS chemicals. Click here to learn more. |
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CPF Legislative Planning Update
The California Professional Firefighters (CPF) Executive Board met over two days in Sacramento to work on the many issues facing our members. President Brian Rice convened the meeting, which encompasses 8 CPF Districts in the state representing the rank-and-file members of our affiliates. LA County, LA City, and Cal Fire are the three biggest affiliates in the Union, with geographical districts representing San Diego and Orange County, the Bay Area, The Sacramento Area, and the Federal Firefighters.
The issues discussed and voted on affected our Political Action plans to ensure friends of firefighters and paramedics are elected to office and will help us protect and advance our issues on behalf of our members. We also laid out our legislative agenda for the next session, including using Telehealth clear patients for transport to alternative destinations and allowing our members to deliver the patients to somewhere other than the emergency room when appropriate. LA County is in a pilot program using NPs, doctors, and Firefighter Paramedics to do just that.
This is complex, and we face much opposition to something that makes so much sense. We face opposition from the hospitals that understaff the ERs in the first place, resulting in greater wall time for our medics and EMTs. We made good progress in involving ER Doctors and Nurses as well as our State EMSA and Local LEMSA folks with the positive results of our own pilot program. We now have over 1000 patients handled successfully.
We also continue our work to add Public Safety Dispatchers to the presumption on Behavioral Health Post Traumatic Stress. We know our dispatchers have a tremendous impact from the calls they take and the stories they hear on the other end of the line. We stand ready to work to ensure they are added to the protections of medical care and treatment as well as retirement impact in some cases for retirement.
The Executive Board also voted on CPF Executive Board resolutions that deal with policy and systems of the CPF with resources to continue our work on Cancer Research, Behavioral Health, and EMS issues with staff and research systems necessary to get the data we need to garner support for laws protecting our firefighters. One such example is the hard work of Derek Urwin through CPF, IAFF and LACoFD with Local 1014 partnership to research and collect sample data to help prove the link to PFAS in our turnouts and some cancers. Without his work and the work of the research teams headed up by Jamie Gabriel, we would not have the power to push to eliminate this chemical from our water vapor barrier in our turnouts. We will share the resolutions and the prep for the convention where, along with our brothers and sisters from LA City and other Municipal Fire Unions, we will put in the work to ensure we continue to address the biggest issues facing our members.
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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. We have over 45,000 signatures this week which shows the amount of public support we have for this issue
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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