Uncategorized

Local resistance to the planned reassignment of career firefighting personnel from combination (volunteer/career) stations to other short-staffed stations throughout Prince George’s County continues to mount following a lawsuit filed this week. The original story, which we covered last month on FirefighterOvertime.org involved plans to reassign more than fifty career firefighting personnel from combination stations to other short-staffed county stations during ...

Two similar FLSA lawsuits have been filed by firefighters from two different West Virginia cities in the past week. The first, which my friend and colleague Curt Varone covered on his Fire Law Blog last Wednesday, contained allegations that the City of Clarksburg was improperly calculating its firefighter’s regular rate of pay in violation of the FLSA. [You can find ...

A lieutenant from the Warren Township Fire Department, in Warren, Ohio has filed a lawsuit against his employer claiming the department’s pay practices violate several provisions of the FLSA.  Lieutenant Gregory Wrightsman filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and other “similarly situated” individuals [i.e., other firefighters that may eventually join in on the lawsuit] in the United States District ...

Prince George’s County Fire Chief Tiffany Green has announced a plan to reassign paid personnel from four of the county’s fire stations in an effort to reduce anticipated “critical staffing shortages” and “excessive mandatory callbacks and holdovers.” This reassignment comes on the heels of the firefighter’s unions voicing concerns related to its firefighter’s mental health and burnout due to excessive ...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a class of more than 150 current and former LA County firefighters alleging that the county failed to pay recruit firefighters for all hours “worked” during the course of five separate recruit academies spanning an eight-month period in 2020. The firefighter’s claims centered around the county’s decision to offer a compressed ...

The union that represents firefighters from the James Island Public Service District’s, Fire and Rescue Department is renewing its plea for higher firefighter pay. The James Island Public Service District, which is a special Public Service District located on the outskirts of Charleston, South Carolina, provides sewer, trash, and fire and rescue services to around 10,000 homes on James Island. ...

A long running dispute over firefighter pay, staffing levels, and overtime has reached the boiling point in Manhattan Beach, California. This past week, a group of twelve city firefighters filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city has unlawfully retaliated against them after they went public with complaints over what they refer to as “crushing” amounts of overtime in recent ...

A group of fourteen current and former battalion chiefs from the Osceola County Fire Rescue and EMS Department have filed a lawsuit alleging the county improperly classified them as overtime exempt executive and administrative employees in violation of the FLSA. Whether any employee can be classified as an overtime exempt executive or administrative employee depends on the specific facts involved. ...

The City of Carbondale, Pennsylvania’s City Council voted to privatize its paid firefighting force by a 5-2 vote late last week. The Carbondale Fire Department is a combination department operating with a small number of paid firefighters augmented by volunteers. According to ABC News Channel 16 [WNEP] the department’s paid staff has dwindled to only four firefighters. As a result, ...

The labor dispute between the union representing firefighters and Boeing took a drastic turn this past weekend when Boeing locked out 125 private firefighters that work at the corporation’s Renton and Everett, Washington manufacturing facilities. The heart of the dispute centers on the firefighter’s wages. According to Boeing the average annual salary for a firefighter is around $91,000. The firefighters ...