The chair of the Havre City Council Labor Committee told Havre firefighters it would issue a decision soon on a grievance alleging Havre firefighters have been forced to work as engineers without being paid for it.
“We will let you know within five days,” committee Chair Brian Barrows said.
Barrows and committee members Andrew Brekke and Caleb Hutchins listened to the complaint presented by International Association of Firefighters Local 601 Grievance Chair Cody McLain and firefighter Chance Ophus, requesting the committee rule on a question about the city and union’s collective bargaining agreement’s policy on working as an engineer and that the city pay Ophus and firefighter Brice Molitor for time they have spent acting as engineers.
McLain said the extra pay for Ophus and Molitor for the extra duties they worked comes to about $700 each. The extra duties have been necessary because the Havre Fire Department has been short two engineers since March — the longest time he has seen being that short-staffed, McLain said.
Havre Fire Chief Tim Hedges, who attended the meeting with Assistant Chief Mel Paulson, said the extra pay is only paid when a driver-operator at the fire department is assigned as acting engineer and works five consecutive shifts in that position. In recent schedules, firefighters are being assigned as driver-operators without being assigned as acting engineers, he said.
McLain said that is a new interpretation of the agreement — in past decades, someone always is assigned as acting engineer and the people who acted as engineer should receive the higher pay grade.
He said Hedges started a new policy effective June 9 that was opposite to the policies and traditions the department followed for decades.
McLain introduced an Aug. 10 letter sent by Havre Mayor Tim Solomon about the greivance, in which Solomon said he agreed with Hedges that “performing the duties of” is not the same as “acting in the capacity of.” The higher pay grade is not automatic, Solomon wrote, also writing that he agreed with Hedges that acting in the capacity also is not automatic and must be assigned for the shift.
Hutchins said that while not assigning the duties has the appearance of retaliation — Hedges said he did not do so in retaliation — it appears to be allowed under the bargaining agreement.
Barrows said he appreciates that Hedges found ways to save the city money.
“I commend him for trying to help the budget out,” Barrows said.
The firefighters union and the department seemed to be in agreement by the end of the Labor Committee meeting on another issue of the grievance, that the collective bargaining agreement should say the higher pay would occur when firefighters work “five consecutive shifts” as an acting engineer, rather than its actual language of “five shifts.”
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