FIREFIGHTERS SOLD DOWN THE RIVER WITH NEW CONTRACT

By Juan Montoya
We understand that Brownsville Fire Department Chief Carlos Elizondo is going around telling people that the posts we publish here are "BS" and that it's all because some people don't like him.
While we don't have the luxury of having  a popularity meter to measure the  degree of likability of any public official, we do take umbrage with being called fibbers and want to know what is not true about these recent posts.

1. The Brownsville Firefighters Association Local #970 on Sept. 29 vote to approve (by a 74-52 vote) a collective bargaining agreement that, among other things:

a. Does away with the Me-Too clause that required the city to give raises to firefighters commensurate with those given the Brownsville Police Officers Association. This is the same clause that Elizondo himself negotiated in past contracts and which the union defended all the way to the court of appeals which upheld the clause and resulted in a $2.7 million award to the union members.

b. Did away with police-firefighters parity in ranks and salary, another benefit championed by Elizondo when he was union president, but one he abandoned when he became part of management.

c. Also did away with minimum staffing requirements for fire stations, allowing the city to chip away at the $1.5 million in overtime paid to union members

Elizondo also cannot deny that he campaigned through his proxies in the ranks for the young crop of firefighters to approve the contract doing away with these hard-gained benefits by telling them that they would get a 3 percent raise over the next five years, a 15 percent raise which might have been achieved through the Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA) which might actually have amounted to more than 15 percent over the same time. In fact, there is no raise at all this year and it will be until 2017 that the first 3 percent kicks in.

By delaying the negotiations between the city and the union while he was the association president, he was able to force the contract down the throats of the rank-and-file or face the possibility of working without a contract.

He also convinced his hand-picked new union president Eugenio Cardenas to sign on the dotted line to give up the benefits so many veterans had fought for and gone to court to defend in the past.
How?

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Take a gander at the photo at right.
Starting at left with Elizondo, Deputy Chief Ernesto Estrada with straw hat, city manager Charlie Cabler, Firefighter Union Vice president Roy Lerma in dark glasses and President Eugenio Cardenas with pink bracelet.

The picture, appropriately, was taken at the Paella Festival Cook-Off Event on September 24 at the Charles Stillman Laureles Ranch House Museum. That's the ranch house that Stillman built on the King Ranch to relax after the rigors of dispossessing the rightful owners of their lands with the assistance of the Texas Rangers. In this case, this bunch dispossessed the rank-and-file firefighters of benefits earned over decades for a chance to grab a piece of the pie and rub elbows and sit at the main table with the Big Boys. The agreement was signed by Cabler for the city and Cardenas for the firefighters a scant five days later (Sept. 29) after the union leaders partied with management.

Elizondo And he cannot deny that he knew of Article 9 of the new agreement which specifically allowed him as fire chief to appoint two deputy chiefs immediately below him in rank. He also cannot deny that he was authorized under the agreement, to appoint one of these persons even of they did not meet the Texas Local Government Code Section 143,014 (e) requirements that they have a permanent classification in at least one officer level.

We now know that this exemption from the Texas Local Government Code was the reason that firefighter Ernesto Estrada (in the cowboy hat in the photo above), the close friend and favorite of City Manager Charlie Cabler,  was able to vault from a simple firefighter over the civil service ranks of driver, lieutenant, captain, and assistant fire chief, to deputy chief – all without having to pass any of the civil service examinations or competing with other applicants as is required for all others seeking the position.

And, the agreement notwithstanding, how can one justify the promotion of this firefighter to one rank just below the chief contrary to the civil service rules in which individuals are employed (hired) on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations? Then, in another contradiction, if the Estrada is removed from that position, he is required to be reinstated to the same position he had before the appointment and regain all the rights and seniority he had under civil service.

Additionally, if Estrada is charged with an offense in violation of civil service rules and indefinitely suspended, he has the same rights and privileges of a hearing before the City Civil Service Commission as a classified employee. If he is found not guilty, he will be restored to his classification he had before the appointment.

So, while on the one hand removing this position from the requirements of civil service, this same person's civil service rights and privileges are restored once he leaves or is removed from the position.
By signing the agreement, the union agreed to this anomaly of civil service application, but is the Civil Service Commission bound by the alterations that the union agreed to even if they go counter to the requirements for examinations and promotions?  In other words, do the union and the city have the authority to violate civil service rules merely because they included it in a labor agreement?  

It's also true that the Texas Department of Health auditors fined the City of Brownsville about $1 million for the EMS units not complying with the medicine protocols that require at least five essential medicines aboard the units to treat emergency health cases. The total was actually more than $2 million, but the TDH relented and limited their $7,500 daily fine to the time that Elizondo had been head of the department (about 136 days).

A cynic might say that Elizondo as union president deliberately delayed city-firefighter contract negotiations to the point where the firefighters would have to accept the city's terms doing away with their benefits in exchange for his appointment to fire chief by Cabler and the city commission.

We'd love to be set straight on these points by the chief. Who is BSing who?