The Round Lake Fire Fighters Local 4235, a member of the International Association of Fire Fighters ("IAFF") and the Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois ("AFFI"), is comprised of the sworn, full-time Fire Fighters of the Greater Round Lake Fire Protection District. On January 3, 2003, the members submitted an official request to the Illinois Labor Board to form a union. On February 24, the members voted with the Labor Board and were officially recognized as a Collective Bargaining Unit with the state of Illinois and became IAFF Local 4235. Click Here to view the IAFF and AFFI charter certificates (Requires Adobe PDF) that recognizes Local 4235 as a Fire Fighters Union.

Once they had officially formed Local 4235, the members elected officers and shift stewards in March. Fire Fighter Paramedics Eric Hair, Paul Willen, and Joe Couture respectively became President, Vice President, and Secretary/Treasurer, while Dan Zeimet, Dan Skidds, and John Sherwood were elected as the three shift stewards. In May 2003, the newly established union commenced negotiations with the Fire Protection District for their first contract, and on March 18, 2005 voted 14 to 3 to ratify the contract. The agreement started on March 20, 2005 and goes through April 30, 2008. With less than a year left under our first contract the membership voted Joe Couture and Mike Bloom to represent the firefighters and Dave White and Charley Mitchell to represent the Lieutenants. President Eric Hair and District 5 V.P. Steve Horne will also be representing us.

The union was formed due to the concerns of the members for both their own benefit and for the benefit of the citizens they serve and protect. Many people are under the assumption that a union only benefits its members, but it goes much deeper than that. The purpose of Local 4235 and all other IAFF unions, is to protect the membership as well as the public. The union protects the membership by ensuring equal wages, benefits, and providing a safer work environment. This includes staffing the fire stations and apparatus adequately, proper training of personnel, and the ability to voice our concerns about department issues. Since Local 4235 was formed, a Labor/Management Committee was established to assist the Local and the District in addressing many of these issues that arise from time to time, and a health and safety committee was formed between the union and the district to address safety issues that effect the department.

In 2004, the Greater Round Lake Fire Protection District was the 5th busiest fire department in Lake County and the 4th busiest out of 61 departments that are members of the Northern Illinois Alliance of Fire Protection Districts. According to NFPA Standard 1710, the department is considered to be understaffed for the amount of emergency calls to which we respond. Having insufficient staffing levels can make many simple tasks into difficult ones. Being understaffed means that at times we only have two personnel responding on an engine or ladder truck. Click here to see the Seattle Study that our brothers from Bridgeview Local 4330 are using to show the public how critical it is to staff the apparatus properly. The study goes into detail on staffing of apparatus and task completion on the fire ground for 3,4, and 5 man companies.

While we still do not have adequate staffing to man each piece of equipment, our staffing levels have gradually started to improve. For the Fiscal Year 2004 - 2005 the district created another position and hired 3 more career firefighters, which brought our total manning to 12 personnel per shift. In 2004 the district responded to 4170 calls for an overall increase of 8% over 2003 and have started out 2005 with our busiest month ever. In January 2005 we responded to 392 calls, which is an increase of 21.4% from January 2004. While that month was very unusual and unexpected, so far the remainder of the year has balanced out with the district averaging an increase in call volume at about 5% for the year. In April 2005 the district came out with a general outline of manpower. This document from the fire district acknowledges that the department is understaffed for the amount of calls we respond to and that they are working on trying to comply with NFPA 1710.

On June 1, 2005 three more career firefighters were hired by the district. With the creation of this position, this brought our manning to 13 personnel assigned to each shift but we usually average 10 to 11 on duty due to vacations, sickness or injuries. The district also related that they would like to move the captains into a staff vehicle, and while doing so, the district is going to create a lieutenant's position so each station will have a company officer and then the captain can direct the entire shift. Although that position is not in the union it will still benefit the membership and the citizens we protect. This is also a big step up in our command staff with the movement of the captains into the command unit. The district will hire three more firefighters to replace those promoted to lieutenant, bringing the total manning to 14 personnel per shift. The department will still not be able to man all the frontline equipment individually, but we have come a long way with our staffing in the past couple of years. The district has submitted an application for the SAFER ACT funding grant, which will bring in federal money to assist the district in creating another firefighter position. As of October 2005 the district has not hired the 3 firefighters promised and has suspended the promotional exam until after the first of the year because of unforeseen expenses for station repairs and underestimated wage increases for the officers. With 2006 just starting the department finished the year with 4,245 responses while this is only 75 more responses than 2004 we still average 11.6 calls a day and since most of our calls are EMS related and a typical EMS call including transport to the hospital is about 2 hours from the time we are dispatched to the time we are back at the fire station that come to 23.6 hours out of a 24 hour day. Included in the responses was a response to New Orleans for 6 weeks with our tower ladder 2630 to assist the New Orleans Fire Department after hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

In February 2006 a promotional exam was held for the position of Lieutenant in which none of the seven candidates passed the written exam so the testing process had to be completely redone. Since the process had to be redone the district in compliance with the IL. state promotions act had to wait six months to retest. In May of 2006 the district hired 2 more career firefighters and 1 more contract firefighter which brought our manning to 14 per shift now and after the promotions later this years we will be at 15 In early August another test was held in which all 6 candidates passed. So a list was formed and appointments should be made in the next month. With this 3 more career firefighters will be hired and our overall shift manning will now be at 15 per shift Though we will still be understaffed this is a great improvement from where we were at prior to organizing. In October 2006 the Lieutenants signed cards and filed a petition with the IL. Labor Relations Board to join the firefighters union. Currently the fire district is contesting this and a hearing with the ILRB regarding this matter was just completed with a decision being released in early 2007. In December the district finally hired the (3) three replacement firefighters to fill the vacancies left open due to the last promotions and our current shift manning is now at 15 firefighters per shift. At the end of 2006 we responded to a total of 4281 requests for service. While this is a small increase it is still an increase. The district also announced that it will be testing for captain and also creating a second deputy chiefs position, this is partially due to the upcoming retirement of Deputy Chief Tom Krueger, but also means that our department is still growing.

In May 2007 Captain John Whitten was promoted to Deputy Chiefs by the board of trustees against the Chiefs recommendation. Lieutenant Tony Carraro was promoted to Captain and Firefighter Paul Willen was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, along with the appointment of candidate firefighter Bradley Verenski. We still have no word from the ILRB on the Lieutenants but we are confident this will be a win for us. As of August 1 of this year we still have not heard from the labor board in regards to the lieutenants. Also as of the July board meeting the district is up almost 6% from last year in emergency responses and if this stays at this number the district will go over 4,500 responses for the year surpassing Highland Park and Buffalo Grove. This would make us the third busiest department in Lake County. The district has also added additional equipment in preparing for fire station 4. This equipment includes a sixth ambulance and an A.R.F.F. / foam tender which was acquired from the U.S. NAVY surplus program. As of late November the district is still ahead of last years responses by about 1%. In late September Captain Tom Thompson retired with almost 29 years of fulltime service with the fire district. We are still waiting on the labor boards decision regarding the Lieutenants and in March of this year firefighter Dan Skidds applied with the pension board for benefits due to a psychological injury from work. He has been off since mid January. The union also in November collected signatures to get questions on the February ballot. One was to make the appointed board an elected board and one was to increase the number of trustees from 3 to 5. At the same time the Chief was asking the board about the possibility of having their own referendum to raise the tax so that station 4 could be built. As of today the board is not going for that referendum and the union only received enough signatures to get the 3 to 5 trustees question on the ballot. The trustees have told the union that they are challenging the petitions and less then 2 days after the petitions where turned into the district office 3 members where called in by the deputy chief and informed that the chief is doing an informal investigation into the petitions. Due to the threat by the district of the informal investigation union President Hair was advised by the Chief that this was not going to be a disciplinary matter. President Hair was asked by the trustees to rescind the petitions because the board had drafted an ordinance to increase the board to five members. Due to this the petitions where rescinded. We will find out more about who the new trustees are going to be in January 2008. In November the district also came out with a new station and vehicle staffing matrix. The results from this mean that there will only be 3 firefighters on an apparatus at all times and that station 1 will always have 6 personnel on duty the district has also made it clear that if station 1 has only 1 officer on duty that the officer is to ride on the engine with the company instead of acting as the shift commander. These changes raise a concern for safety because our engines (except station 3) where always staffed with 4 firefighters and now will be staffed with 3, and with the shift commander riding on the engine this means that formal incident command may not be established in a timely fashion. These issue's are being addressed in labor management and health and safety and will also be addressed in negotiations.

Well it's now March 2008 and our local has been organized for over 5 years and we are coming to the end of our first contract, which expires in April. In January the union filed its demand to bargain in accordance with the language in the contract and with the rules set forth by the I.L.R.B. After submitting the demand to bargain to the Chief, who is the districts representative, the chief advised the union that he and his attorney believe the union missed their window for submitting the demand to bargain and at that time the chief refused to acknowledge it. The union then contacted the A.F.F.I. and our attorney about this matter. The next week the district and the union met in labor management and once again the demand to bargain was discussed. Once again the chiefs view on this was that the language in the contract meant something different then what was agreed on in the contract and in the negotiations. The Chief went on to relate that the board would only like to open the wages section and the union declined and related that if this was their position that a ULP would be filed. At the February board of trustees meeting the union was invited into closed session with the trustees in which the chiefs attorney related that the district would bargain with the union if the union dropped the Lieutenants. Much to their dismay when the union told them no because earlier that morning we finally received the ruling from the I.L.R.B. on this matter and the ruling was in our favor. This caused more tension because the chiefs attorney threatened to take this to the courts before even reading the ruling. What was then agreed upon was the Lieutenants will take a secret vote on whether they would like to organize and if they want our local to represent them. As far as the demand to bargain issue. Both new trustee's ,which this was their first meeting, spoke and related how they would like sometime to make things better and it was agreed upon that if the union did not instigate petitions for an elected board for the life of the next contract that they would recognize our demand to bargain. While we did give up this right for a short time we still have made forward progress and stood strong against the Chief and his attempt, again, to break the union.

April 2008, per the agreement with the board of trustees from the February board meeting the Lieutenants voted with the Illinois Labor Relations Board. The vote was 9 – 0 in favor of joining our union. So hopefully this will put this issue to rest finally and allow the union to start negotiating our next contract with the fire district. It is worth noting that a week before the vote our board president and the Chief sent letters to each of the Lieutenants advising them of the vote and then relating to them how good the district has been to them with raises and benefits and also relating to them that it would be more beneficial to them for them not to organize or form their own local. After that the Chief met with all the Lieutenants and spoke to them about the same things the letter said. All of which is ILLEGAL. Our attorney was contacted and a letter was sent to the Chiefs attorney asking him to stop in which he didn't. So now the vote is done and hopefully we can move forward.

May 2008, The Lieutenants are finally in our union and on the 2nd we started negotiations with the fire district. Representing the district is Chief Maplethorpe, Deputy Chief Whitten and Captain Carraro. With the Lieutenants issue finalized we were able to start holding our postponed election of officers and stewards. Eric Hair was re-elected to President and Mike Bloom was elected to Vice President. It was also decided to ammend the bylaws to seperate the secretary/treasurer's position into two seperate positions. That election and the stewards election should be held at the June meeting. On May 27 the union met with the districts negotiating team for our second round, and just as expected the district is trying to take away just about every benefit that our membership has, but what was even more suprising was that not one trustee, whom our contract is actually with, was in attendance at either meeting. Due to vacations the June meeting and negotiations are being moved to July. While we are taking the month off it appears that the Chief is not and once again in his attemp to punish the Lieutenants for unionizing - UNION BUSTING - he has decided that, when a Captian is off, they should not act up as shift commanders and either hires back an off duty Captian at time and a half or allows the non sworn Metro contract manager or Deputy Chief to act as the Shift Commander. This is happening while at the same time the district keeps saying that we are in a serious financial crisis. Along with that the district on July 1 started a new apparatus numbering system and as another act of retaliation took away their issued radio numbers while the other officers including the Paid on Call Lieutenants kept theirs. The union filedt a ULP regarding this matter and is in the process of filing a second in regards to the Chief freezing the Lieutenants clothing allowance. Once again we are starting to have turnover in our ranks with Firefighters Chris Grazier and Tom Kriss have resigned to take positions with other department. Chris left with over 38 months of service and Tom with 9 months of service, and once again the trustees are not even asking why. Starting July the pension board will have their hearings on a request for disability for brother Dan Skidds. Dan has been off work since January 2007 due to a medical condition, and in January 2008 the district cancelled his insurance leaving him and his family without insurance

As of the end of July the union and the district have met several times for contract negotiations. Currently we are making forward progress with many issues and have tentative agreements on several sections of the contract. While this is posative we are still a long way from finishing.

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