This from Willam Post:

A Sun-Times article today talks about a dispute with the city administration on proposals set forth during contract negotiations. The proposal to make engines that are located with trucks into 4-man companies would effect 60 out of 95 engine companies, assuming that it doesn’t include Engines 91 and 116 that are housed only with Squad companies.

It also includes a proposal to make all 15 of our BLS ambulances into ALS ambulances.

In a plan the firefighters union calls “insulting” and “ridiculous,” Emanuel is taking aim at such treasured union perks as holiday and duty availability pay; clothing allowances; pay grades; premium pay; the physical fitness incentive and the seven percent premium paid to cross-trained firefighter paramedics.

One former union official estimated the proposed concessions could cost the average firefighter $7,000 a year.

The mayor’s plan does not include closing fire stations. But, it would alter the minimum manning requirement that triggered the bitter 1980 firefighters strike.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday that a new contract for Chicago firefighters will need to include cost-cutting reforms to the way the department operates, but the union is vowing to fight the administration’s proposal.

The jockeying comes as the current firefighters’ contract lapses June 30. The firefighters union contends the city’s offer would eliminate several categories of additional pay and reduce the number of firefighters at some fire houses.

In a letter sent recently to union members, Firefighters Union Local 2 President Thomas Ryan called the proposals “insulting” and “ridiculous.”

Ryan’s letter states the city wants to eliminate various salary add-ons that increase firefighters’ take-home pay, including the clothing allowance and the 7 percent bump for employees cross-trained as firefighters and paramedics, along with the “duty availability” payments to firefighters, who are on call to work on their days off.

The city proposal also calls for cutting from 10 to nine the number of firefighters stationed in the “double houses” that have both fire engines and fire trucks, according to Ryan’s letter, which includes no mention of the city wanting to close firehouses.

My view is, I have a responsibility to all the people of the city of Chicago,” Emanuel said at a news conference to announce GE Transportation will move its headquarters here. “Not a few, not one part of the city, all the people of the city of Chicago. And I’ve got to make sure the taxpayers and the residents are represented. That’s my role.”

“I respect what Tom (Ryan) has to do, I respect what the members of the firefighters operations as a city employee have to do,” the mayor added. “But I’ve got to make sure we’re making the changes that are necessary for the future, and we’re not just doing things like we used to do them because we used to do them.”

Last year, then-Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff told aldermen he was “deathly against” reducing manpower and “adamant” about keeping truck staffing levels the same because lowering them would put residents and firefighters in danger.

But Hoff retired in February, and new Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago has taken a softer stance on the manpower issue. “There’s many, many different studies on what is safe and not,” Santiago said about staffing levels at his introductory news conference.

Tags: Chicago Fire Department, Chicago firefighter contract negotiations, Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, City of Chicago wants to cut fire department personnel