By Annmarie Timmins
Concord Monitor
Copyright 2007 ProQuest Information and Learning
All Rights Reserved
CONCORD, N.H. — Contract negotiations between the city and the union that represents firefighters, paramedics and dispatchers have reached an impasse over pay raises and health care costs. The two sides are scheduled to meet with a mediator tomorrow.
The group has been working without a contract since July 1, which means no raises until a new agreement is signed.
“We are not looking to get rich. We just want to provide for our families,” said firefighter John DeJoie, the union’s spokesman for contract negotiations.
DeJoie said the union believes Concord’s firefighters are paid well below comparable departments. The union also says its members’ salaries fall short of the recommendations of an independent consultant hired by the city.
Concord firefighter salaries start at $34,048 a year and top out at $45,318, according to figures supplied by the union. The starting salary is 4 percent less than Manchester’s, 25 percent less than Nashua’s and 8 percent less than the consultant, Condrey and Associates, recommended.
There are significant differences at the top end, too.
City Manager Tom Aspell declined to respond to the salary differences raised by the union, saying the two sides first have to meet with a mediator and lay out their comparisons. The union and the city might not use the same list of towns for comparison, Aspell said.
In addition, Aspell said the city must look at wages and benefits to properly compare compensation among fire departments. It’s also important, Aspell said, to consider how other cities and towns structure their pay scale; some give incremental step increases more quickly than others, while others allow a big difference between starting and maximum salaries.
The Concord firefighters’ current contract was signed in 2004, and it gave no pay raise the first year, followed by a 3.8 percent raise the next year and a 3.5 percent raise the third year. That averages out to a yearly raise of 2 percent over four years, much less than the increase in the cost of living, DeJoie said.
In a prepared statement, the union said that in those same four years, the cost of milk has gone up 20 percent, gas 63 percent and home heating oil 11 percent.
DeJoie said the department’s current salaries make it difficult to recruit and retain staff, especially paramedics. Aspell said recruitment is not a challenge unique to Concord.
“I think if you check with every fire department, everybody is having trouble attracting quality firefighters,” he said. “The same is true for police work. Maybe some of it is wages, but it’s also the workload and, for some, the lifestyle.”
In some ways, this round of contract negotiations is no different than those of past years. DeJoie said every contract has required a mediator and factfinder, which is the next step. But there will be differences, too. DeJoie said the union plans to be more public this year.
The union is planning an information picket Sept. 10 outside the city council meeting. It will endorse candidates in the city council elections, where 13 of the 15 seats are up, and it will also recruit firefighters from Concord and beyond to help their chosen candidates at the polls.
“We are planning a push we have not seen in eight to 10 years,” DeJoie said.