Federal employees legally cannot strike, regardless of the circumstances. On the other hand, we are losing so many federal wildland firefighters (none of whom, as far as I know, have been moved over to the new wildland firefighter series) that many engines and some crews are just not staffed at all. Anecdotally, while many are leaving for other agencies, some are leaving fire entirely.
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I left fire a long time ago. I like going to fires and sleeping in the dirt for weeks with lots of OT, but I don’t like the mission creep that has been assigned in gross amounts. There were other things I could do that I also enjoyed, so I did. Among other reasons.
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I did some math on what the salary for a GS4 step 1 will look like after the “pay increase” Please let me know if I’m off on this or missing something
Current salary-$33,693 + 50% retention allowance of $16,846 for total of $50,540
Current salary-$33,693 + 33% salary increase of $11,118 for a total of $44,812
Hourly wage would increase to $21.47/hr with OT of $32.20/hr
so in order to make up the difference, the employee will have to work 177 hours of OT a year, or 6.8 per pay period. Obviously it would be less if the employee was earning hazard pay or the proposed “incident stand by pay” but they are going to have to work more to get the same compensation they are making now with a standard 40 hour work week
Its nice that the pay increase will help with high 3 for retirement, but its going to be hard to explain how this is beneficial to an 18 year old who can go to McDonalds, Dutch Bros, etc and make more working a much easier, less dangerous and demanding job.
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Don’t forget that most gs4s are 1039. So take that annual income and cut it in half. Ive never liked the fact that they put a full years wages on announcements for seasonal employees. Shady if you ask me
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Great point
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Bill text:
https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/DD1EDC0F-4F05-416A-A0F9-2D7B6231796B
FS update:
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Make sure everyone you know signs this!!!
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Thanks for sharing. Regardless what the header says. 
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They sure have a lot of speculations in there for a agency that can’t even hire enough people right now with the only requirement being a heartbeat
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Well that document didn’t last long. Wonder why they’re keeping everything secret? Is it they don’t want feedback from the 0462’s out there?
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Wonder what the 5 California federal fire management directors are doing on the 0456 series. Messaging out would be a good thing.
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I honestly feel they really don’t care and if they could get rid of us all and contract out they would
Don’t be surprised if in 3-6 years all the green stations turn red and all of R5 is contracted to calfire.
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Unfortunately this is the way it appears to be going. But it won’t be all green stations only those that make since. ESP cause the state cost way more and has a higher standard of stations. Feds can’t get stations fixed now there will be even less money if and when it happens.
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Not likely the wages proposed will turn the corner on the vacancy rate, and if it does, it will take 3-4 years to see staffing at an acceptable level. If we get the pay scale approved and add on top of the administrations 5.1% raise for all, that could be a sizable bump.
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I personally think, this is baked into the cake and the point of no return has already been passed.
In California MOST ALL LG depts have between 15-30% vacancy rate and its growing in most cases. Depts that once only hired Paramedics that had 1yr field experience and a SFT FF1. Will now hire almost anyone with a EMT card and put them through a SFT academy.
I know of several So Calif, Inland Empire depts that have Vacancies in all ranks. Some are offering a $15,000 signing bonus. While others are recruiting from Senior class at local high schools. Others have even taking their training staff and pushed them to stations to help alleviate the force hire problems.
Until the DEMOGRAPHICS problem is solved, this problem will continue and get worse with time.
Not just a FEDERAL FF problem. Rather it’s an ever growing BLUE COLLAR Labor problem.
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Still waiting for the house to introduce… start writing those representatives. Friends, Family, everyone you can imagine. Once introduced, it has to go to committee, then vote… we have less than 60 days… tick tock tick tock…
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