Yachats firefighters ask state to decertify year-old union as talks drag out

 

Yachats firefighters are asking a state agency to hold an election to decertify its 14-month-old membership in the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Yachats firefighters voted in August 2018 to join the Newport chapter of the IAFF. It was their first attempt at joining the union to bargain over pay and working conditions with the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District Board.

But contract negotiations didn’t start until last winter and there have been five sessions since, the last in September. None are currently scheduled.

Yachats had six paid firefighters when they joined the union; because of a vacancy now there are five. It takes 50 percent of all covered workers to ask for an election to join a union and 30 percent of covered employees to seek a decertification election.

The Oregon Employment Relations Board received a petition Oct. 17 from at least two firefighters to decertify the union. The district posted the notice Oct. 24 and the union has two weeks to object.

If there are objections, the issues go to an administrative law judge, said Adam Rhynard, ERB chairman. If there are no objections the agency conducts an election by mail. The majority decides.

If the firefighters vote to certify the union, they cannot join or form a new bargaining unit for a year, according to the ERB’s notice.

Rhynard said the agency conducts only a few decertification elections a year, and mostly for small, rural agencies.

“They’re pretty unusual,” he said.

Tim O’Neill, the Yachats firefighter who signed the decertification petition, expressed general dissatisfaction with the unionization effort, adding that firefighters have gone without a pay raise since August 2018.

The firefighter who led the unionization effort, Kyle Drewery, has started a five-month leave of absence. Firefighter Eric Stafford is the new union representative in Yachats, but is on a month’s leave and could not be reached for comment. A call to the Newport union representative was not returned.

Yachats Fire Chief Frankie Petrick
Frankie Petrick

The fire district is scrambling to fill shifts in November and December because Drewery and Stafford are on leave, and Nick Codiga of Carlton, who was hired in May, is moving to central Oregon. District administrator Frankie Petrick told the fire board last week that shifts are being filled with part-time crew, volunteers and that she is seeking to hire a full-time firefighter/EMT.

“We’re able to cover shifts, but it’s not easy,” she said.

The Yachats department did send a wildland firefighting truck to California this week as part of a task force from Lincoln County and Oregon to help with wildfires there. Stafford went as one of the county’s crew chiefs.

The firefighting help is part of conflagration agreements among West Coast states under which departments respond with personnel or equipment and are reimbursed for their costs.

 

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