Atlanta’s local fire union is suing the city for failing to honor a collective bargaining agreement, saying they were recently blindsided when told Mayor Andre Dickens had never signed the nearly year-old contract.
Last April, the union celebrated when Atlanta City Council passed a resolution ratifying the first-of-its-kind collective bargaining agreement. Among the provisions were a new 14-day pay cycle, regularly scheduled meetings with department leadership to discuss labor concerns and a formal grievance process.
Firefighters had previously been on a 28-day pay schedule.
Nate Bailey, president of the Atlanta Professional Fire Fighters Local 134, said the city had operated under those terms for six months — until October, when the union was informed by fire department leadership that the contract was never signed by the mayor, and therefore was not in effect.
This news came after the union filed a formal grievance with the city for the department’s failure to transition to the new pay cycle, and over a lag in annual salary increases.
“For years, we’ve had struggles with the city keeping their word,” Bailey said. “Morale is very low and this is one of the issues causing morale the plummet.”
Bailey promised that the lawsuit wouldn’t impact the department’s operations, and that firefighters will continue to be paid.
“Every single day, Atlanta’s firefighters keep their promise to the city of Atlanta — we keep our word, we keep our oath.” he said. “This entire contract was about both sides keeping their word.
“We negotiated this contract, and now the city is trying to break away and say it’s not valid, even though they acted under it for six months.”
Last week, the union began upping the pressure on the mayor’s office to formalize the contract by March 13. The union filed the lawsuit Tuesday, in Fulton County Superior Court, after the deadline passed.
The suit alleges the city breached the contract by refusing to transition to the 14-day pay cycle, failing to implement annual pay increases, revoking the approved agreement and refusing to take part in an arbitration process.
The Dickens administration says it has not signed the agreement because the last election for union president was “inappropriately conducted.”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the national union has instructed Atlanta’s chapter to re-do the election, and that the city will sign the agreement once that is done in May.
“Mayor Dickens has always been committed to signing a collective bargaining agreement with the representative union members choose,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “Questions surrounding the legitimacy of the recent election, with calls from both members of Local 134 and national leadership to rerun it, cannot be ignored.”
But it’s still unclear why the agreement wasn’t signed by the mayor when it was approved by Atlanta City Council nearly a year ago. The union held its election in November, months after the council ratified the agreement.
“This is the very first collective bargaining agreement in the city’s history, and now we’re having to file suit because the city won’t honor their part,” Bailey said.
Bailey pointed to the support the union has given Dickens since he took office — lobbing for the 2022 Moving Atlanta Forward bond referendum; and supporting the city’s public safety training center, which has been one of the most controversial projects during Dickens’ tenure.
Atlanta firefighters “don’t feel respected, valued, and there’s a lot of distrust,” Bailey said. “We felt like we did everything that we could do to create that strong partnership,” he said.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
