Higher pay and better benefits are in store for Orlando firefighters, following city commissioners’ approval Monday of a new labor contract.
“This contract puts the Orlando firefighters back on top of all the municipalities in Central Florida … as far as both pay and benefits,” said Lt. Doug Zabin, president of the Orlando Professional Firefighters labor union. “This contract provides us with the largest raises that we have ever received from the city of Orlando. So we're very excited about that.”
The new contract bumps up firefighters’ starting wage from about $59,000, the current starting rate, to just over $64,000 a year. Firefighters with more experience can potentially start at a slightly higher salary of around $67,000, Zabin said.
Also included in the new, three-year labor contract is a cost-of-living adjustment: a 10% increase for this fiscal year, then a 4% increase for each of the next two fiscal years.
Under the newly-approved contract, Orlando firefighters will continue working 48-hour weeks instead of scaling back to 42-hour weeks. That reduced work week is a growing trend in the fire services industry, Zabin said.
“We spent a lot of time discussing that. However, it is a big change and an expensive change,” Zabin said. “Both sides felt it was better to focus on wages than a work schedule at this time.”
A new state law enacted earlier this year encourages firefighter employers not to require firefighters’ standard schedules to exceed 42 hours per week.
"We were hiring 200 people a year, and losing 200 people a year."Lt. Christopher G. Ritchie, Orange County Fire Fighters Association
As city firefighters begin earning higher wages, firefighters employed by Orange County Fire Rescue are still engaged in their own fight for better pay. Members of the Orange County Fire Fighters Association started negotiating for a new contract three years ago, according to union president Lt. Christopher G. Ritchie.
Back then, the union began tracking why OCFR employees leave the agency and learned pay was a key factor.
“They’re going places that offer better pay, benefits and, in a lot of cases, fewer work hours,” Ritchie said. “We were hiring 200 people a year, and losing 200 people a year. Our average retention rate is 3.4 years.”
Generally, OCFR firefighters earn between 35-40% less than they would working for comparable agencies, Ritchie said. Now, he said, after years of negotiations, the agency and union have essentially agreed on what base wage increases should look like: 25% in the first year, plus 5% in each of the next two years.
But there’s still one sticking point. “What is at odds right now is affordable healthcare,” Ritchie said. “After a couple of negotiations back and forth, it boiled down to: the county just wants to keep control.”
Approving a new contract that includes higher wages and better healthcare is critical for resolving the Orange County agency’s struggle to recruit and retain talent, Ritchie said.
A special magistrate hearing was held last week to try to resolve negotiations between OCFR and the union. The special magistrate’s nonbinding opinion is still pending. If either party rejects the special magistrate’s opinion, it’ll then be up to the County Commission to cure the disagreement, Ritchie said.
