Nice job Washington Post.
As we head into the bottom of the 5th:
NFFE - 1
Forest Service Bureaucrats - 0
Keep hammering!
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Well past the 180 day deadline. Why are they allowed to break the law, but us a employee’s and citizen’s would be in JAIL! Step up to the plate, Brain Rhodes and tell your employees what is really going on and why managers and management are not following the LAW! I think if there is no action in the next week, we should all unite a file a grievance against everyone in upper management, all the way to the Washington DC level. Let’s see how they would like that. Law is Law, and they are not complying with it. What makes them exempt from following the law.
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I agree. Rhodes does need to step up or step down, even if he does so in protest.
I disagree laws have been broken, but if you had to find the worst way to roll this out, you wouldn’t need to look to hard, just do what these clowns are doing.
Forest Service and DOI all have old guard fire people in these decision making positions. Most are GS 13,14 and 15s, all making well over 100k. Their reality is not the reality of the common firefighter. We need new leadership in Boise and DC. .
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Another NFFE letter and they have seen something they do not like.
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Apprentice those that are distributing facts.
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Anyone get the license plate of that Mack Truck?
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CeltRwoFAPk/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CemZ5G5giBv/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
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A few brutal moments.
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So happy to see national news orgs picking this up thus applying pressure. Hopefully next payperiod…
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Thankful to NPR, they’ve been tracking this issue for at least a couple years.
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I agree with what you’re saying, and if they continue to ignore the pressure coming from lawmakers, the union, their employees and the public I think that a grievance would be warranted. But even if they do implement the pay increase soon, I think we have a justification for a grievance or even a lawsuit against them. The bill directs the agencies to increase the base salary of forestry technicians. What they’re putting on the table now is just a straight 50% or 20K bonus. Salary would increase our OT and hazard pay, as well as going towards high 3 for retirement. Any increase in pay would help with recruitment/retention, and I think most of us would be happy with anything at this point, but I don’t want management to get away with paying out a fraction of what was intended to go to frontline workers.
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Agree it should be a base pay increase like whats in the Tim Hart act but this would be a nice step forward either way towards getting some traction to correct this decades old inequity.
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This was posted in the comments on Wildfire Today, its a response from an email sent after the town hall meeting.
"“Thank you for your comments and question about the Wildland Firefighter pay. To address your question on why it is taking so long to begin payment. Numerous items must be addressed that people may not be familiar with. The language of the legislation was not written in a way that could be quickly or easily implementable. One of the biggest challenges is the term “base pay,” which is not used in the federal government. Had the word “basic pay” been used in the legislation, there would have been a clear understanding of the policies.”
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Good lord, now its a language problem? Someone needs to get fired over this rollout.
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I think in this case it is the intent of the law and not the letter of the law. Implement the intent and get beyond the BS.
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100% this is getting ridiculous…look at this tweet from Vilsack today. Shameful. https://twitter.com/SecVilsack/status/1536757357631397888
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