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Firefighters union seeks input in disciplinary process
(Buffalo News, The (NY) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 11--LOCKPORT -- The city and its firefighters union are headed back to court, this time to fight over how discipline is meted out to union members.
The city sued the Lockport Professional Firefighters Association last week, trying to block a union demand for arbitration on the structure of the standard disciplinary process.
Union president Sam Oakes said the union wants input into who the hearing officer is in disciplinary hearings.
Deputy Corporation Counsel David E. Blackley said the city simply uses the process specified in Article 75 of the state Civil Service Law.
He said the union contract doesn't contain any provision that would supersede that law.
Oakes said the union wants to change the process before an upcoming disciplinary hearing, which neither he nor Blackley would discuss.
"Under Article 75, the city had handpicked the hearing officer," Oakes said. Giving the union a voice in that "would make it more evenhanded," he said.
In arbitration cases, the state Public Employment Relations Board supplies a list of seven potential arbitrators, and the sides each eliminate three. The last arbitrator standing gets the assignment.
Oakes noted that when the city tried to eliminate the health benefits of two injured firefighters a couple of years ago, the union demanded arbitration and the city went to court to try to block it. The city lost, and the arbitrator ruled the firemen's benefits should be restored.
That was only one of the recent courtroom battles between the city and the firefighters.
Earlier this year, an arbitrator ruled -- twice -- that the city was required to send an ambulance to every fire call. The city had amended its firefighting policies to try to avoid that, allowing it to use fewer firemen per shift.
And a lawsuit filed by the union last year, trying to prevent the city's planned shift of fire dispatching duties to the county Sheriff's Office, is still before State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr.
Kloch has scheduled a Sept. 11 court date for the city's latest attempt to block arbitration, and a Sept. 25 court appearance on the dispatching suit. An injunction blocking the transfer of dispatching duties to the county remains in effect.
tprohaska@buffnews.com
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