War of attrition (continued)

DISSENSION IN THE RANKS

Rinaldi, 37, and two of his closest friends in the fire department describe their jobs in a manner reminiscent of military veterans recalling tales of combat. They describe how the special bonds between the men and women in the fire department are forged from shared experiences in the face of danger and witness to death and destruction. It is a job they love and are committed to, they say, through a sense of pride and honor. But everyone has limits.

"I planned on them pulling me out of here kicking and screaming at age 60, with my fingers stuck in the concrete," says Rinaldi, a 16-year veteran with the Providence department, 14 of them on a team of firefighters handling special hazards. "I absolutely love this job. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do. My dedication and love for this job can never be questioned."

Yet Rinaldi says he has contemplated leaving. An excellent cook (his recipes have received several awards in recent years from the Food Network’s Cook & Ladder contest), Rinaldi has been looking at other options. "I really have to be looking at leaving this job," he says. "I have offers from different restaurants."

Firefighters Tocco and Toro say the demands of the job make City Hall’s contract offers a "slap in the face." Their sense of personal affront is such that they feel, as Toro says, "When it’s time to balance a budget, they stick it to the fire department."

The most recent contract proposal would have covered six years, retroactive to July 2001 and continuing through June 2007, and included salary increases that would have brought pay for Providence firefighters to a level better than many other towns across Rhode Island, although still somewhat below salaries for their peers in Pawtucket, Cranston, Warwick, and Newport. The proposed final base salary of $963 per week was less than the comparable pay for firefighters in Boston, Worcester, Hartford, and Springfield, where firefighters will earn $1318 weekly in the final year of their current contract. Beyond salary issues, the union bristles at the demand that firefighters and retirees pay 10 percent of their health-care costs, and accept transfers of firefighters from two ladder truck companies, reducing the truck crews from four to three.

Cicilline says the department chief needs "management flexibility," or the ability to "allocate resources to the place of greatest need, as any good manager would require." But the union points to safety standards established by the independent National Fire Protection Association, which says crews should consist of four firefighters for optimal safety. Only 13 of the city’s 23 fire trucks currently operate with teams of four.

Once the alarm rings, the firefighters say, they push grievances and wounded feelings aside and put everything they’ve got into doing the job. But the consequences of such feelings may manifest in other ways. Rinaldi says firefighters are resistant to volunteering for extra duties such as the dive team, or taking additional training courses for which they would have to pay out of their own pockets. "They push so hard, they give you no sense of value," he says. "So now I don’t do anything except what the job requires me to do. This is the worst I’ve ever seen morale, by far the absolute worst."

Although firefighters respond to a share of situations involving nothing more serious than burnt food, the stress of aiding people in dire and even mortal circumstances takes a toll; Tocco says up to 40 percent of city firefighters have sought departmental assistance or therapy for work-related stress or substance abuse. "Some guys snap," he says.

Many of the union firefighters are suspicious not only of politicians, but what they perceive as a big business-propelled lack of respect for all workers. "This is a nationwide problem," says Rinaldi. "If it’s Wal-Mart or the PDF [Providence Fire Department], people are not valued. There’s a lot of people who are getting beat down day in, day out."

Tocco observes, "Union’s a four-letter word now. Unions are the reason we have a 40-hour workweek, why we have no child labor. I’m proud to be a union member. If you left it up to big business . . . ."

And when it comes to firefighting, Toro says, "You gotta want to do this job. You gotta eat, breathe, and sleep this job. They’re a bunch of cowards at City Hall . . . They have no idea what it’s like, nights and weekends and holidays, in 105-degree weather . . . I love doin’ it, but show me some respect."

THE MAYOR HEDGES HIS BET

The delicate balancing act required to deliver a contract that satisfies both firefighters and city taxpayers is unlikely to keep everyone happy, and it appears that Cicilline would rather risk alienating a few hundred firefighters than thousands of property tax-paying voters. The mayor’s effort to drive down the cost of union contracts contributes to his image as a fiscally responsible reformer. Even a critic like City Council President Lombardi says Cicilline has played his cards well. "The executive was smart," Lombardi says. "They got the media and the public on their side."

Still, the firefighters’ contract dispute could prove a lingering issue even after the current round of arbitration ends. Union president Doughty says the arbitration over the contract years from 2001 to 2005 won’t be resolved for another six months to a year, at which point the city and the union will need to start talking again about a contract going forward from the fiscal year ending in July 2006. Although Cicilline currently lacks any formidable rivals when it comes to winning reelection, a nasty and ongoing dispute with the firefighters could prove an unwelcome distraction in the midst of the 2006 campaign.

Cicilline cites the willingness of other municipal unions to settle their contracts as a sign that the fault lies with the firefighters. "If you look at the history of this union, their track record and their inability to resolve these kinds of negotiations, unlike everybody else," he says, "it’s not hard to figure out where the problem in this negotiation lies." Yet this assessment is belied, at least in part, by how the union representing the city’s police officers is also in arbitration, having failed to reach a negotiated contract-settlement. The firefighters are not the lone holdouts.

Even if Cicilline’s handling of the firefighters makes staunch opponents of the city’s unions, they lack their greater political clout of bygone days. (Ironically, city workers’ efforts to abolish the residency requirement undercut their power as a voting bloc.) Mayoral candidates no longer have to consider making promises to the unions to win an election. Cicilline, at least, won’t be seeking the firefighters’ support.

It remains to be seen whether the mayor’s new paradigm of municipal contracts will have staying power. At any rate, it’s clear that Cicilline and whoever succeeds him should not count on a clean slate with the firefighters. As URI professor Scott Molloy says, "Mayors come and go, but those unions have been here a long time." And they don’t tend to forget past slights.

John Zorabedian can be reached at john.zorabedian@gmail.com.