The tone and temperature at the start of labor contract negotiations between the City of San Antonio and fire union on Thursday starkly contrasted the adversarial posturing amid the political firestorm surrounding the talks five years ago.
“We’ve already agreed on 11 things,” Richard Poulson, chief negotiator for the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, said of the mutually agreed upon ground rules for the upcoming collective bargaining sessions.
Poulson’s comment elicited several chuckles from both sides of the room inside the city’s International Center downtown. Both the city and the union have leaders in place this time around who have established a better working relationship — which both sides noted contributed to their respective levels of optimism that this round won’t result in another contentious battle.
It took more than six years for the two sides to approve the current five-year collective bargaining agreement, during which there were lawsuits, court-ordered mediation, dramatic press conferences, a contentious proposition election initiated by the union and suspected petty moves during bargaining sessions. Through the election, the union successfully limited the pay and tenure of city managers to eight years and won the right to call for binding arbitration in its contract negotiations — a right that the union ultimately used to arrive at the current contract adopted in 2020.
“A lot of things have changed in the last five years,” City Manager Erik Walsh said during his opening remarks. “I think it’s important for you to hear from us that our approach is different. [We] can’t change history, but we can certainly learn from it.”
The current contract expires at the end of 2024 and leaders from the city and union expressed a desire to ratify the next one well before that.
“That adversarial relationship has been resolved,” Joe Jones, president of the fire union told reporters after the brief, 20-minute introductory meeting. “Those healthy relationships and that mutual trust and respect is absolutely essential to healthy negotiations. And that’s why we remain cautiously optimistic.”
While Walsh and Deputy City Manager María Villagómez declined on Thursday to provide what the city’s top priorities will be in negotiations, Jones made it clear that the union will be focused on getting its members, including firefighters and paramedics, substantial raises.
“I’m optimistic,” Walsh told reporters. “We’re both focused on making sure that we take care of our employees and their members, and [coming] up with an agreement that maintains competitive wages and recognizes the hard work that our firefighters do.”
New city, fire union leadership
Walsh and Jones have a very different relationship compared to their predecessors.
Starting in 2013, longtime City Manager Sheryl Sculley, at the direction of elected officials, took a hard line on reining in the ballooning health care costs of public safety union employees.
Staff estimates at the time suggested that spending on wages and benefits for uniformed personnel and their dependents would eventually consume the city’s general fund. The city also filed a lawsuit in November 2014 challenging the so-called evergreen clause that allowed most contract terms to continue for up to 10 years after it expires.
That triggered both police and fire unions to engage in years-long efforts to protect the evergreen clause and their health care plans, which covered members and their families without requiring premiums. Former fire union President Chris Steele launched a full-on attack on Sculley, which included the successful ballot measure that capped future city manager’s salary and tenure.
In 2016, the police union and City Council approved a contract that included a health care option that had officers’ dependents pay premiums for the first time.
During subsequent negotiations for a 2022 contract, talks with the police union centered around disciplinary procedures. The approved contract strengthened police disciplinary measures and added significant pay raises for officers.
For the fire union, a panel of arbitrators, which the fire union gave the authority to decide its current contract, landed on a health care plan for the fire union that was similar to the police union’s.
Public safety spending, much of which is negotiated in the contract, still accounts for a majority of the city’s general fund, but the exponential increase of health care costs has largely been stemmed.
The fire union’s contract doesn’t have the same disciplinary process issues that the police union’s had, Walsh told the San Antonio Report: “It’s a different type of dynamic.”
Despite Sculley’s retirement from the city in 2019, the arbitration process remained acrimonious. Neither side said this week that they wanted to use the arbitration process, preferring instead to stay at the bargaining table.
“This is much more productive,” Villagómez told reporters. “It’s better for the employees when both the city and the association are negotiating a contract rather than having a third party make the decisions.”
Jones agreed.
“I believe in trying to handle things in a dignified manner,” he told the San Antonio Report. “I always have and I stand firmly with that position.”
Searching for a new SAFD chief
While contract negotiations continue, the city will continue its search for a new fire chief after longtime Chief Charles Hood was forced to retire in January.
The position will be officially posted on the city’s website on Thursday and the city hired a recruiter to expand the search, Walsh told the San Antonio Report.
“Whether they’re internal or external candidates, they’re going to be looking to see … what kind of relationship [city administration has] with labor,” Walsh said. “It would have been very difficult to recruit a fire chief during the battles of five years ago.”
While Hood was not a member of the union, Walsh appointed Christopher Monestier to serve as interim chief. Monestier is a union member who previously served as deputy chief.
