San Antonio firefighters approve new contract with 21.3% raises

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio firefighters and paramedics have approved a new contract for the first time in 15 years in a landslide election.

Negotiating teams from the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association and the City of San Antonio hammered out a tentative three-year deal on Aug. 24. But it needs the approval of both the union membership and the city council before it can take effect.

Roughly 76% of the nearly 1,800 union members voted on the contract, which passed with 97% approval. Only 35 members cast a ballot voted against it.

“It tells me that firefighters really feel the economic impact of the last decade and they’re looking forward to wage increases,” SAPFFA President Joe Jones told KSAT.

Though the 21.3% worth of raises in the contract were below the 37.5% the union was requesting at the beginning of negotiations, Jones said “I think that our firefighters and paramedics understood that it’s going to be a process. You know, we didn’t arrive here overnight. We’re not going to be 100% overnight.”

The city council will vote on the contract Thursday.

Here are some basics of the deal and the city and union’s history, as well as the new contract:

The last time the city and union successfully negotiated a deal was in 2009 for a contract that ran from Oct. 1, 2009 through Sep. 30, 2014.
Between 2014 and 2020, the two sides engaged in an extended fight over healthcare costs and a controversial “evergreen” clause that allowed the terms of a contract to stay in place up to 10 years after its effective end date. It also meant firefighters did not receive a raise for more than five years.
The fight included a city lawsuit over the evergreen clause, and a fire union-led campaign in November 2018 to change the city charter, which included giving the union the sole power to call for arbitration.
The union used its new power to call for arbitration in July 2019, which resulted in a panel of three arbitrators forcing a deal on both sides in February 2020. However, the contract gave firefighters less than they had hoped.
Since October 2013, firefighter base pay has grown 10.4%, while inflation has risen 34.8%. So while the $52,164 base pay the lowest-ranking firefighter received in October 2013 would now be worth about $70,312, their actual base pay is just $57,576.

The tentative deal includes annual pay raises of 7%, 8%, and 5%. The compounding effect adds up to 21.3%. A plan to roll $2,400 of incentive pay and allowances firefighters already receive into their base pay will make the impact of those raises even larger.
The $109.6 million contract is $27.7 million more expensive over three years than the city originally accounted for in its budget. To make room, the city plans to cut green initiatives and funding for VIA Metropolitan Transit, make changes to fire overtime, and speed up a fee increase for EMS transports.

The following graph shows five of the 15 base pay scales in the proposed contract. The raise amounts also include the $2,400 shift in incentive and allowance pays.