You cannot win a pay parity fight unless you engage and fight. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease. Our problem w/ 2881 is they always settle for what the negotiation team wants, gets. I know for a fact for multiple years one member of the negotiating team only wanted more money for paramedics. He got that money, but nothing was achieved for anyone else. The membership has to fight and send a clear message to the “team” that they won’t settle. If it takes a last, best, and final from the State to be shoved down our throats, so what. Keep fighting! Be that wheel and don’t settle for just any grease. Make sure it’s what you want. You’ll never get what CHP has unless you fight for it. I believe there are far more 2881 Firefighters in the State than CHP members.
I believe 2881 often backs legislators in getting them elected, right? Veto override. Long shot, but…
It ran out of grease and is cutting into the spindle. We may have more members but we don’t stand by the Gov in most of his appearances to keep him safe! I agree you have to make a stand and not cave.
CHP was the first and last to get pay parity. Maybe through a miracle the legislature would override the guaranteed veto, but if I remember correctly they could have on at least one of those occasions. Pay parity removes the bargaining on pay and the state won’t do that one again.
CHP is not a general fund agency. Pay parity might happen if we had our own guaranteed revenue stream separate of the general fund.
I remember one year in the Riverside Ranger Unit 2881 was protesting pay and a contract outside Fire Stations, on their days off of course. We can do it again on a Statewide effort. All it takes is a little effort. Send this deal back to the table. This is our to stand and fight. Reject the offer!
“We have not yet begun to fight”
If you have ever been to a Union meeting and seen the lack of members that show up, then you would realize no large amount of members are going to go out and wave picket signs on they’re only day off that they were not forced to work.
It’s the members MOU. If the Union wants better wages, healthcare, salary increases, reduced workweek, etc. then they had better participate. Otherwise, just stay home and stop complaining about being held on duty for weeks, low wages, broken families (divorces), a major MOU improvement, and everything else. It’s a choice!
Every unit really needs to follow suit of some of these LG dept union halls that have a full on bar set up and flat screens next door to a dispensary and food trucks. That will def bring in paying and convert non union members. Haha
I am a paying union member, I work 72 hours a week in addition to force OT, OT, out of county deployments, ICS overhead deployments. You talk about divorce, broken families, FOT, and then say we need to participate more in union activities away from our families. My family deserves to see me when they can. Comments like this are the reason people like me are questioning and wanting change in our union. If I take my truck to a car wash, I don’t jump in and help scrub bugs off of it, I expect the people i’m paying to do the job that I am paying them for. The union is not doing its job for us CAL FIRE employees and always throws it back at the employees that we should be doing more. If this is the case then what are we paying for?
Well said Rogue14
I feel Exactly the same way. Why can’t we stand our ground and tell the governor or government officials that we need better wages and better support for better working conditions. We should not be settling. We deserve better and more. Our voices should have value. We need our voices heard.
It seems like most here are against the new contract. If I am correct on this, please make your voice heard with a vote. Low turnout to voting is what’s going to get it passed and yep, potentially get your EDWC bargained away in two years. Unfortunately, our younger generation who are a large part of this vote, will likely go along with a yes, simply because of a lack of active education from our Union. They can’t EXPECT members just to show up, they actually have to provide ongoing education around the issues, not just bits and pieces during voting.
I am an outsider, I have no horse in this race, other than being a California taxpayer. I find Norcal711’s comments ironic. He sides with Rogue14 in saying the union needs to be the ones pushing the contract and in the same paragraph, saying we need “our” voices heard.
Of course I understand when he says “ours”, he means the membership through the union. But, you have to show support for your union for them to be effective.
When is the vote?
Voting has to be complete by Oct 28th.
Also an economic update.
Social security and unemployment both have inflation related cost of living increase provisions, our MOU does not, which is not an accident.
What’s everyone’s sense of which way this will swing? Has anyone who was opposed to or suspicious of the contract seen the light?
I have spoken to quite a few people, and still the most positive I am hearing is " I think it’s ok" or " It’s the best were going to get". We had a representative “in the know” attend our presentation meeting to pitch it. All of the chapters question and concerns were met with, “well that’s one way to look at it”. WTF???
Our chapter has directed very simple questions (who, what, when, where, why, how) up the chain and have got crickets in return. Many of us get the sense from the top that this is the proposal we got so take it, like it, and don’t ask questions.
Like it or not I think most can agree this isn’t a home run contract. So why are we settling? Shouldn’t a union stance be to fight like hell for what is best and push the envelope to get the best for the membership?
The State was SHADY, they didn’t engage with the barging team, then they throw something on the table at the deadline… Oh and by the way you have till the end of the day to decide! That’s a used car salesman trick. We should have gotten up and walked away. I feel most of the membership would have understood and got behind that, would probably have put some fire in everyones belly too.
Or, The Inflation Reduction Act. Government needs your money so they can spend it, instead of you. Thus, a contract with really no upside for the most part.
This is exactly how I have been feeling. If what the union is telling everyone about how bargaining happened is actually true, then the state was obviously in violation of the Dills act and our attorneys should have been all over it…
Every question I have asked has pretty much get the same response, this the best we could get, take it and don’t ask any questions.
Chief Tyler talked to BDU & MVU last week and mentioned a budget shortfall the 1st three months of the current fiscal year of approx $4 Billion. This article further discusses the shortfall.
I agree 100% that this agreement is “less than optimal”. However, looking at the landscape
Inflation is 8% ÷
30yr mortgage rates are approaching 7%
Housing starts are down 25%÷
Q1 & Q2 GDP were both negative and we are in a recession.
What does all this mean, the economy is crashing and those of us who are old enough to remember Stagflation is upon us(increasing interest rates, decreasing GDP) This reminds me of 1978-1982 time frame. The difference this time, there doesn’t seem to be the will at the state or national level to reverse course the way POTUS Clinton did in 1996.
We are in for some pain, some severe pain in the next 12 months IMHO. My health insurance goes up 20% for 2023 or I change all my doctors and drive further for services. Energy prices show no let up in the near future and will in fact continue to rise for the foreseeable future.
But the bottom line is this, L2881, CPF, & IAFF combined don’t equal SEIU or the TEAMSTERS. Look at the Engineers, 4yr W/O a contract, look at the Rail Unions and some of them Rejecting their agreements.
I will take the 7.5% that’s in this agreement over 2yr and pray the economy turns around in the 2nd half of 2023 and early 2024 in time for the next negotiation for 7/1/2024.