TIMBERLY ROSS
Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. - After years of wrangling, Omaha is taking a firefighters union to the Nebraska Supreme Court in a dispute over a contract that the union argues should have put more firefighters on the streets, not allowed the city to let the numbers decline.

Firefighters have been working without a contract since 2007. The Nebraska Commission of Industrial Relations, trying to give both sides time to work out an agreement, modified the previous contract _ but that also caused a fight. The city and the Professional Firefighters Association of Omaha, Local 385, were unable to agree on how those changes should be implemented.

So the state's highest court has agreed to intervene. Oral arguments are set for April 7.

Assistant City Attorney Bernard in den Bosch said CIR issued a decision last month that made clear the city has final say on staffing.

"The city gets to decide how many people the city will have overall" in the fire department and at what ranks, he said.

Messages left for the firefighters union and its attorney were not returned.

A Douglas County District Court judge ordered the city in 2009 to hire more firefighters to meet staffing requirements. The order, which the judge said was in line with a CIR decision for 2009 wages, required the city to have 657 fire personnel on its payroll _ the same number as set by the previous contract. But by then the number of fire personnel had fallen to 649. It was at about 610 in July 2010, and continues to fall through attrition, in den Bosch said.

Both sides appealed the court ruling, which stemmed from disagreements over the CIR decision.

The city contends that when CIR mandated that at least four people be on each fire truck, engine or similar vehicle, it superseded the overall staffing requirement. The city argued that it had the option in the last contract to either meet the 657-personnel quota or to be able to meet the manning requirement without calling in off-duty firefighters.

"The 657 number was only relevant to give us the number of people we had to have not to call people back," in den Bosch said.

The city argues that under the CIR manning requirement, Omaha needs to have enough firefighters to fill 173 shifts per day, which requires about 519 fire personal rather than 657. Omaha agreed in court filings to have more than that to accommodate sick leave and vacations.

But the union argued in court filings that the CIR decision didn't explicitly change the staffing level or a requirement that Omaha fill 150 captain-level positions. The union said the city should be found in violation of a requirement for 150 captains.

"The union asserts that this is simply picking and choosing which provisions of the contract the city would like to follow and which provisions they would like to ignore because such provisions are expensive or inconvenient and the city would otherwise like to escape its obligations under that agreement," the union said.

The union has asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to uphold the 657-personel staffing requirement and force the city to have more captains.

Rather than 150 captains, the city contends it needs 139. According to Omaha's court filings, CIR threw out a requirement that each ambulance be staffed with a captain, reducing the need for captains.

Contracts with the fire and police unions were among the primary issues raised in the failed bid to recall Mayor Jim Suttle.

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Online:

Nebraska Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourt.ne.gov

City of Omaha: http://www.cityofomaha.org

Professional Firefighters Association of Omaha, Local 385: http://www.local385.com


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