City and firefighters' union reach agreement

After a month-long impasse and heated exchanges, the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Local 287 and the city reached an agreement on Wednesday that temporarily avoids the layoffs of five career firefighters as talks continue.

“This deal temporarily saves the jobs of five members of our union,” Local 287 President Billy Piazza said in a statement. “We will keep negotiating to maintain these positions going forward.”

The agreement reached between the city and the union includes a deferral of the layoff date from Jan. 1 to Feb. 15 in exchange for a deferral of one week's pay from all Local 287 members to be paid back at a future date.

The planned layoffs were announced after a two-year, $910,530 federal grant — the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER, program grant — that enabled the department to rehire five members two years ago came to an end in December. City officials said that Local 287, the union that represents the city’s career firefighters, was aware that funding would run out. The city said that the application period for a new grant did not open this year.

The firefighters received their notices on Dec. 17, a day after a heated council meeting at which union leaders and their supporters locked horns with city officials over the layoffs, which the city informed Local 287 about on Dec. 1.

Although the grant that funded the five paid firefighters expired on Dec. 1, the city said that it had already instituted a grace period of one month, keeping the jobs available through the end of the year.

“Working together, the city and the paid firefighters union negotiated a deal that kept these five positions funded for another month and a half, and we are pleased that the union accepted the initial offer we made several weeks ago” City Manager Jack Schnirman said in a statement. “These positions were originally funded by a grant, and they are now funded through mid-February by a concession of the paid firefighters union members, a deferral of one week's pay.”

The city said that it had already extended the five positions through the end 2014 as a courtesy.

Negotiations between the city and Long Beach Professional Firefighters Local 287 broke down earlier this month, after the union rejected the offer that city officials said would have temporarily avoided the layoffs of five firefighters and allowed for continued talks about how to save their jobs. Piazza had said that initial agreement was unfair.