Board of Aldermen 6-10-2020 Page 10
But the thing that we have to remember is that our members since Day 1 have been on the front lines
dealing with COVID-19. We are going on calls every single day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week dealing
with this.
Our members are very concerned about bringing this back home to their families. We understand that what
is going in the world right now is not a good time. But we are still fighting that fight. Over the past 10 years,
Local 789 has gotten an increase in pay, 19.5% over ten years. That’s 1.9% that our members have
received over the course of 10 years for pay raises. The last time we have seen a raise of 3% was back in
the 2008. That’s 12 years that we haven’t seen a raise over 2.5%. | believe the time is now that we pass
this, we approve this, we show good faith to the members of this organization that are on the front lines. As
the Chief had talked about a few of the concessions that we had made, the Fire Alarm Overtime is huge.
That’s a huge concession that affected, right now, 12 individuals of this Local. And we understood why
they wanted to do that and we gave up, we conceded on that. | don’t think you understand the importance
of the concessions that we made for the Fire Marshall's Exam.
As the Chief had said, currently right now any member can test for Fire Marshall with one year on the Fire
Department. They might not have the schooling and the education. Our contract right now says that they
have a certain time to get that education. With the new language and the concessions that this Local made,
that is going to benefit the City of Nashua tenfold. As we speak right now, our Fire Marshall Division is
already understaffed; it is understaffed and it is affecting the City of Nashua’s operations because they
need to get plans out. They need to get these out for people to open up businesses.
During this whole COVID-19 Crisis, with the outdoor seating, they had to go to make arrangements for
these restaurants to open their doors and allow people to sit outside and eat. So with the concession that
we made with that alone is going to benefit the City way more than anybody realized, because people are
going to go into that Division and they are going to be ready to go, they are going to come out of the door
running. Also, with the COVID-19 response, when this hit us back in March, Local 789’s Executive Board,
nobody has dealt with anything like this before.
The Governor declared a State of Emergency, we met with Administration, we said what are we going to
do, how are we going to handle this. What a lot of people don’t understand is the Local came up with a
Memorandum of Understanding with the Administration of the Fire Department to allow leniency on our
current contract, because we knew dealing with this crisis that contract language might have to be
changed. And instead of having that conversation every time it came up, we established a Memorandum of
Understanding that stated if there is going to be contract language that we are going to change, just have
conversation with the Local. The Local has worked, | believe, pretty well with the Incident Management
Team that was established by Chief Rhodes to handle the COVID-19 Crisis. They have had to change
contract language; we have allowed that to happen.
Not granted, that’s not a concession for this particular contract, but | bring that up because it reiterates the
seriousness of the situation that we are dealing with right now and how involved our members are. Our
members understood that this is outside of the box for everybody, but we are willing to do what we need to
do to get the job done, which we have always done. I'll end it with the members of Local 789 deserve
these raises. They deserve this contract. Not only because of Safe Stations, not only because of the
COVID Crisis, but because of the calls that they deal with everyday of the year, 365 days a year, 7 days a
week they are dealing with this. We are already short staffed as the Chief had talked about, the new study
that is coming out. That study was done 20 years ago and it called for 2 additional engine companies then.
So if you think about that, the increase in runs over the last 20 years, we are still doing it with six engines
and 3 ladders. Our companies are going out 15, 20 times a day, that’s one company alone, never mind
throughout the City.
| ask you tonight to approve the cost for this collective bargaining agreement. That was negotiated fairly
between the City of Nashua, the Fire Administration and Local 789. Thank you for your time.
