Maine Firefighters (IAFF) Winning Shorter Work Weeks in New Contracts
* EDIT: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Rockland Firefighters have also negotiated a 42-hour work week. We have corrected the error.
Union firefighters in Maine are leading a movement for a shorter work week. In recent months, the Professional Firefighters of Maine and IAFF locals in York (3622), Orono (3106), Old Town (1655), Waterville (1608) and Gardiner (2303) and others have been winning contracts that move from the traditional 56-hour work week to a 42-hour work week. Union leaders say the goal of this effort is to create a better work-life balance for members and to attract new firefighters to the service.
“The best part is we’ve been able to cut the hours with no loss in pay,” explained Ronnie Green, a retired Bangor firefighter and 4th District Vice President of PFFMaine. “If your paycheck is a thousand dollars a week under a 56-hour work week, we’ve adjusted the hourly rate so you’re still earning $1000 a week at the end of the week. You’re still taking home the same amount of money.”
Green pointed out that it used to be extremely difficult to get into fire service, but with the pandemic, a surge in retirements and members leaving the profession, departments have had to work particularly hard to recruit qualified firefighters. That’s part of the reason why IAFF locals in Maine have been able to win victories like a much better retirement match and a reduction of hours in the work week. Green said that people once “lived to work,” but now younger workers “work to live” and want more free time for other things like spending time with their families.
“Firefighters used to go into the fire house and pretty much live there. They would come home for a day or two a week and that was their work schedule. Somewhere along the line they came up with this 56-hour work week with 24 hours on and 48 hours off. That became the standard,” said Green. “But now younger people just aren’t all that excited about spending their entire life working and they don’t want these long schedules that require them to be away from home all the time.”
Public employees as a whole are also banding together and demanding better contracts after taking so many concessions in the Great Recession, like forgoing cost of living adjustments and paying more out of pocket for health insurance in order to balance strained municipal budgets. These days it’s a “race to the top” as IAFF locals push to regain what they had and local governments seek to hire the best of the best. It’s a long time coming, says Green.
“Years ago if you had a good government job — whether your were a firefighter, a cop, a snowplow driver or other public employee — that was the place to be because you would get decent pay, really good benefits and a great retirement. It was stable and you’d put in your 25 or 35 years and go home to live comfortably and happily ever after,” he said. “Now that’s just not happening. You can go into the private sector and get pay and benefits that are just as good as in the public sector. A lot of what we’re doing now in bargaining these new contracts is playing catch up and getting back to where we should be.”