Tag Archives: collective bargaining

Five California firefighters filed a lawsuit last week alleging their employer, the City of Santa Clara, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Christopher Gaffney, Andre Jerome Soto, John C. O’Leary, Guido Quartaroli, and Jeff Provancher filed the collective action (lawsuit) on behalf of themselves and other similarly situated individuals against the city in federal court on October 24, 2018. ...

On Monday October 23, 2018, the City of Naperville, Illinois, implemented a new “power shifting” schedule for some city firefighters. This schedule assigns four full-time firefighters to a 40-hour, Monday thru Friday schedule, as opposed to the traditional 24-hour firefighter schedule. This new innovative data-driven schedule is designed to “enhance services and increase efficiencies while holding the line on [overtime] ...

The Los Angeles County Fire Department is facing scrutiny over departmental overtime and payroll costs. According to the Los Angeles Times (Times), overtime costs for the more than 4,800-member department has increased 36 percent in the past 5 years. The department spent over $200 million on overtime in 2017. In response to these increases, the county recently launched an internal ...

Should battalion chiefs be eligible for FLSA overtime? That is precisely the question a federal court in Washington State will be answering in the coming months. This case is one of many pending lawsuits that we are following regarding shift commanders and overtime eligibility. This particular case began in May of 2017, when eight current and former Vancouver, Washington, battalion ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the financial manager for a small fire protection district. I recently attended your FLSA for Fire Departments seminar. One of my biggest take-aways from the 3-day class relates to firefighter work periods. But now I have a follow-up question. Our firefighters work 24-hour shifts for an average of 56 hours per week. We process payroll ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the union president for a small municipal fire department. We have only five firefighters on duty at any one time. We negotiated an overtime call-back provision within our labor agreement that allows firefighters to come back if the on-duty crew is out of service (on calls) for an extended length of time. Firefighters receive time ...

Six Merced, California, Police Department employees have filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming it failed to calculate overtime pay correctly. The suit was filed on August 17, 2018 by three sergeants, two patrol officers, and one dispatcher in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Specifically, these sergeants, officers, and dispatcher claim the city failed to ...

The Village of Villa Park, Illinois, is being sued by a former firefighter for alleged FLSA violations. Brandon Santiago filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and other “similarly situated” firefighters, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois last week. Santiago claims the village failed to include various wage augments in his and other firefighters regular ...

The County of Riverside, California, has settled a lawsuit filed by 24 former trainees over unpaid overtime. The 24 claimed the county failed to pay trainees for all hours worked during their 26-week training academy. The lawsuit was initially filed by Matthew Dashiell, a former sheriff’s deputy trainee. Dashiell was a trainee at the sheriff’s department training academy in 2013. ...

The City of Gloversville, New York, has agreed to pay city firefighters a total of $250,000 for alleged violations of the FLSA. According to The Daily Gazette, the city agreed to the settlement in an effort to “avoid more costly litigation with the [firefighters] union.” City firefighters claimed the city’s compensatory (comp) time practices violated the FLSA. Comp time is ...