With all the allegations and passion on both sides of the issue, it’s a good thing to see the Career Firefighters/Paramedics union filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Town of Ocean City.
This way there will be some resolution on the matter to some degree. The comments made at this week’s meeting at City Hall largely did nothing to settle the differences and the chances are the city’s firefighter/paramedics will never agree with the city’s belief that doing away with the “24-72” work schedule is beneficial to public safety.
If the city is not found at fault in its negotiations with the union, as we suspect will be the case, we believe this issue needs to be put to rest to allow the adjustment period to begin. We understand both positions here, as both have had ample opportunities to detail their respective stances, and we do not believe it’s productive to continue to go back and forth over this matter with the summer nearly here.
The city wants to do away with a “24-72” schedule effective October 2017 because it fears timely service will suffer due to fatigued responders, while the union believes it will lead to a reduction in public safety capabilities through damaged employee morale and a loss of routine functionality. There are more angles to this situation, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it.
Our view is the city has not presented a convincing case for the change. We still believe the current system is not broken. However, viewpoints expressed about calls being slept through and response times being longer at night compared to the day because of personnel sleeping are concerning.
The fact here is the city has the upper hand. If the city is found to have acted fairly during the negotiation process, and we believe that will be the case, the only reasonable recourse for employees adamantly opposed to the scheduling change is to land a new position before the change goes into effect in the fall of 2017. We hope that’s not the case because the city’s first responders do an outstanding job of protecting the public.
Exploring other legal alternatives, reportedly the next step if the city is cleared of labor malfeasance, would be a waste of resources and time. It sends a bad message to the public as well and will lead to an unfavorable shift in perception.
By and large, excluding the major change to the work schedule, the new contract, which we reviewed in its entirety this week, seems entirely fair and generous. Significant raises in compensation and a new retirement perk should not be ignored, even if it means major changes in lifestyle and work conditions will be enacted 18 months after the contract goes into effect.