Tensions Build Over Firefighters' Demand for Mediation

The announcement Tuesday by Palo Alto firefighters that they have formally requested mediation over stalled negotiations with the City of Palo Alto is being called a diversionary tactic by one city official.

“It’s pretty clear that this is something that is not merely negotiating but that is political in its intent,” said Council Member Pat Burt.

The City and the union have been deadlocked in their attempt to hammer out a cost-saving labor contract, with neither party willing to budge. Burt says that calling in a mediator, however, doesn’t change the fact that the union will use binding arbitration as a negotiating tactic later, and therefore only creates costly delays.

Not true, says Palo Alto Fire Fighters Local 1319 President Tony Spitaleri, who insists arbitration can be avoided if an agreement is hammered out with a mediator.

“The way to use arbitration correctly is to try to get an agreement without going to arbitration,” he said.

“Sometimes it takes a third party to get involved. Sometimes both sides that have been looking at something a long time can get tunnel vision.”

Burt disagrees with the premise that mediation will succeed, however, since both sides are intractably dug in.

“After a year of negotiation, and three years after going to the Fire Department to participate like all our other unions in dealing with the impact of the great recession, they want to buy time,” he said.

And further delay, says Burt, may mean further reductions in city services.

“Every month that we delay means us getting pushed into a corner of having to reduce the police force,” he said.

Spitaleri said that the union has been a fair, good faith player in the negotiations, offering what they call $3.1 million in “givebacks” to help close the city’s $4.3 million budget gap.

“We feel we gave a substantial offer. We’re not sure why it’s being rejected,” he said.

Burt, who disputes those numbers—and the very notion of “givebacks” as counting toward cost-savings—does not think the union has been fair in its negotiating tactics, and thinks the request for mediation is more an attempt to win over public sentiment.

“They may hope it has an effect on trying to change public opinion toward their actions,” said Burt, but that “sincere bargaining does not happen through the media.”