City firefighters are negotiating in good faith

Dean Fletcher, Las Vegas

Thursday, May 13, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

A story in Wednesday’s Las Vegas Sun by Joe Schoenmann, “County’s pull in firefighter talks may be compromised by city deal,” failed to properly weight the cornerstone issues that are part of negotiations, including the fact that Las Vegas firefighters have once again given up cost-of-living increases (just as we did last year).

This is a major concession but Sun readers wouldn’t learn of it until the second page of the story on the bottom of the fifth paragraph. This is balance?

The total of the concessions by Las Vegas city firefighters so far this year adds up to more than $2.7 million. There is also an agreement to work harder and smarter by bringing $1.6 million in new revenue to the city by increasing the number of emergency transports handled by Las Vegas firefighters.

For all new firefighters who would come on with us, they would start at 5 percent less. Finally, we are also looking to add new positions in order to reduce overtime costs. These are the real negotiating points.

Firefighters across the valley are constantly being pigeonholed as not negotiating, not giving enough. This is simply not the case.

We have and will continue to negotiate in good faith. We have not been hardliners at the negotiating table. We realize these are tough economic times, and we will be here for the community we love and protect.

The writer is president of Las Vegas Firefighters Local 1285.