Contract in limbo for Bangor’s firefighters

BANGOR – Pay and insurance remain the sticking points in contract talks between the city and its firefighters, who have been working under the terms of their previous three-year labor agreement since it expired last June.

“It’s been kept kind of quiet,” Ron Green Jr., president of Local 772 of the International Association of Firefighters, said of the current round of negotiations.

The union local represents 87 fire department employees, including firefighters, captains and lieutenants, the department’s mechanic and its fire prevention and public education officers, Green said.

“Basically, we’re in the same boat as the teachers,” Green said.

Like the firefighters, the teachers’ contract dispute revolves largely around pay and health benefits.

The city’s 368 unionized teachers have been without a contract since last September. Contract talks have remained at an impasse since November, when a state-appointed mediator was unable to find common ground between the union and the administration.

“Wages and insurance are the big issues right now,” Green said, adding that the two issues were interconnected.

One year, Green said, he wound up taking home less pay, after his cost-of-living raise and insurance premium increase were factored in.

Among the issues in the current round of labor talks is the city’s offer of a less costly health insurance plan.

Green acknowledged that health insurance premium costs were skyrocketing across the nation.

“I understand what they’re trying to do,” he said. He added, however, that while the new plan would reduce firefighters’ out-of-pocket costs, “it’s a lesser plan” in terms of coverage.

Whether a settlement will be reached without mediation or arbitration remained unclear this week.

“We’re still in regular negotiations,” City Manager Edward Barrett said Monday.

Asked if the city or the union planned to call in an independent go-between, Barrett said, “Not that I’m aware of,” adding that he had not been directly involved in the negotiating process.

Negotiations between the city and the fire union have been rocky in recent years.

Firefighters ratified their most recent contract in August 2003 by a slim margin, a union representative said at that time.

That contract was approved after more than 20 months of negotiations, a year and a month after the previous agreement expired.

It succeeded two three-year contracts, both adopted in October 1997, that ended a contentious round of bargaining that spanned more than four years.