Almost a month after protracted contract negotiation between the Guelph Professional Fire Fighters Association and the City of Guelph concluded, city staff are still calculating the financial impact of the new contract due to back pay and a new retiree health benefit.
A collective bargaining agreement between the city and Guelph Professional Fire Fighters Association (GPFFA) expired on Dec. 31, 2017. Since then, the two parties have been working toward hashing out a new agreement. On March 18, an interest arbitration between the two parties was completed.
City staff are still in the process of finalizing the related costs resulting from the recent Fire arbitration award, said David Godwaldt, general manager of human resources for the City of Guelph.
"We anticipate to have this completed by early next week, and we will share the information once it’s available," Godwaldt said in an email.
Much of the negotiations were completed directly with the union, said deputy CAO Colleen Clack. An expedited arbitration was used for the final negotiations.
“We were pleased with the amount of progress we made with the Guelph Professional Fire Fighters Association,” said Clack. “There were a couple of final items we had heard in front of the arbitration panel and were decided by the arbitrator.”
Clack said the backpay the City must pay to the firefighters in retroactive pay was expected and allocated for in the 2019 budget.
Firefighters with Guelph Fire Department also received backpay in 2018 as retroactive payment from the previous collective agreement. That retroactive pay resulted in a higher-than-usual number of firefighters on the so-called Sunshine List of public sector employees paid $100,000 or more in 2018.
One challenge in the last round of negotiations, said Clack, was to be competitive with the rising salaries of other fire services across the province. In the decision, arbitrators cited negotiated settlements in Cambridge, Mississauga and Barrie.
As a result of the negotiation, first class firefighters receive a salary of $99,125 as of Jan. 1, 2018 and increases every year. By the fifth year of the agreement, the base salary of a first class firefighter rises to $106,809.
As of July 1, 2017 the base pay for a first class firefighter was $97,290. Clack said the increase in base pay was largely a result of keeping up with similar increases in other municipalities.
“A lot of it speaks to decisions made elsewhere in the province and matters that extent beyond Guelph in terms of what they are seeing in other jurisdictions,” said Clack.
In addition to an increase in salary, the city will also provide a post-age 65 Retiree Health Care Spending Account for eligible retired employees. Firefighters between the ages of 65 and 75 will be eligible for up to $3,000 per year for their health care needs.
As part of the City’s side of the argument in the latest negotiations, the arbitrators were told ‘services may have to be reduced, in light of the decision, if current funding and taxation levels are not increased.’
Clack said there are no current plans to reduce the level of service or number of firefighters employed by the City.
“There is no intention on our part to reduce the number of firefighters that we have, that is not something that is being considered,” said Clack.
Instead, Clack said that statement was speaking generally about the challenges municipalities have in paying for first responders.
“It’s just something in the wider picture that we wanted to flag to the arbitration panel, that there are long-term concerns in municipalities across the province about ability to pay. It was part of the argument that we put forward,” said Clack.
In the 2019 budget, the city allocated $42 million for Guelph Police Service and $26.5 million for Guelph Fire Department. Of the $26.5 million in the fire services budget, more than $25 million goes to salaries, wages and benefits.
