Firefighters are waging a battle of public opinion.
AUBURN – The red, black and white brochures landing in Auburn mailboxes this week seem simple enough.
They seem designed to remind people that the firefighters are part of the community and to highlight just how busy they are.
But members of the firefighters’ union say the brochures have a more important purpose: getting people on their side in labor conflicts with the city.
“We’re still serving the community, but we want the people to know what kind of restrictions we’re under,” said firefighter Rodney Corey, who designed the brochure. “We wanted to find a way to keep more in tune with the community and let them know the kinds of challenges we’re facing.”
City and union officials have been at odds since last summer, when the city exercised a clause in a new contract to pull back a 2-percent raise. City and union officials met with an arbitrator from the Maine Labor Relations Board on Tuesday and Thursday to argue the case. The arbitrator is expected to decide whether firefighters will get their raise this spring.
But union Vice President Mike Minkowsky said the brochure isn’t about the raise. It’s about the number of firefighters on staff.
“Being short on staff, that’s a common-place work theme,” Minkowsky said. “We’re like everybody else. You work around it. But the way call volumes are increasing, it’s only so much time before something snaps. We’ve done what we can with the staff we have.”
Calls for service have increased 84 percent over the past 10 years, according to the brochure. The number of firefighters hasn’t kept pace, he said, and that leaves the department stretched too thin.
“We just want the citizens to know what they’re getting, that it might not be what they expect,” Minkowsky said.
The union began mailing the brochures to 7,500 residents last week, and is creating a new Web site, as well.
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