Firefighters Await the State's Input on Contract

The state is expected to give word on the firefighters’ union contract, which the union and the town have been unable to agree upon, according to The Lowell Sun.

Firefighters asked for salary increases of about 2 percent for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, Local 3126 Westford Firefighters President Dave Greenwood told the sun.

Firefighters have been out of contract for the last two years and have followed an old one. The firefighters and the town have been unable to come to an agreement.

Firefighters are at odds against Town Manager Jodi Ross, who says the firefighters should comply with the rest of Westford’s town departments, which received no wage increases.

“We’re all on the same team,” Ross told The Sun. “We’re on the Westford team. And I'd like to think if some of us had to take a 0 percent increase, that all of us would."

Westford firefighters have hired their own financial advisor to look into the town’s budget. They await a decision from the Joint Labor Management Committee in Boston and the Labor Relations Commission for a ruling.

If the labor commission rules in the union’s favor, employees could be retroactively compensated with a 2 percent salary increase for the past two years.

The firefighters’ contract for 2014 will not be negotiated until previous years’ contracts are resolved.

Ross told The Sun that because nobody received pay increases, layoffs were prevented.