Escaping the Trap Set by Our Protectors

If past behaviours are an indicator, we need to draw a line in the sand and escape the threats, intimidation, and disinformation of the groups we pay handsomely to serve and protect us.

Right out of the gate, let’s address my motivation. Why am I sharing this information with you?

First, because I care deeply about the future of our city, the region and its residents.

Secondly, because there has been a failure to address the trap we’ve been stuck in for decades and if we don’t get it fixed, we will never escape.

Thirdly, we’ve clouded the need to position the city to thrive and grow, with the respect that we have for first responders. This has resulted in cuts to other services for decades, costs that are too high, resulting in a low growth environment when compared to other cities and our surrounding communities. Simply put, we need to invest differently, to position the city as a great place to live, work and play.

Let me highlight what we agree on. Public safety is a critical priority for our city. Protective Services members do critically important work and are highly respected, by me and our community. Every decision we make, has to consider a full range of objectives, including public safety, financial sustainability of the city, and the economic, social and cultural well-being of our citizens. Local economic, social and cultural conditions impacting our citizens matter, affordability matters, and we can’t ignore that reality.

What’s a stake with THIS conversation? The entire future of the city.

Are we going to prioritize the future of our city and its citizens, or are we going to do business the same way we have in the past? Are we going to only superficially address the barriers, governance issues and the lack of openness and transparency, or are we going to develop a balanced plan, that will guide us toward a prosperous future?

If the union’s expectations don’t change and we continue to think in terms of win-lose, we’ll miss the opportunity to see our city and region grow and thrive. Without protective service unions willing to be part of the solution, we’ll spend all of our time fighting about the budgets and will result in more layoffs and a negative narrative for our city and citizens.

Fearmongers or Protectors? Pick one.

I would like to draw your attention to a post (below) shared last week by the union representing the firefighters. Be sure to read the post, the comments, the entire production. It’s a real show! They’ve got communication skills, indeed.

Original post by IAFF Local 771 under the confusing new moniker “Saint John Firefighters” posted on March 27, 2021: https://bit.ly/2Q28o5E

This is framed as an innocent and caring post, when it’s real objective was, arguably, to make YOU feel afraid. It’s simply another check box in the international propaganda machine being put to use all over Canada. It’s a card that protective services unions play often..

Now, let me explain. Our local firefighters union, an organization that, for its entire existence, has referred to itself by its union identifier IAFF Local 771 has recently “rebranded” to “Saint John Firefighters” in a blatant attempt to blur the line and usurp the authority and trust in our fire chief and fire department.

This post by the way is only one example, I could share dozens of others posted by the union in Saint John and from cities around the region and country. These are not innocent posts, they are all part of a playbook tough in classrooms to union leadership across the country.

For context, according to all the data available to us in City Hall and, unfortunately, kept from the public while the unions twist whatever angle they choose. Here’s what the firefighters should have said if honesty and transparency was their true goal:

1. Fire operations are broken down into 15 minute intervals. In 24 hours, there are 96 intervals. For ONE of those 15 minute intervals all of our resources were tied up. The union focused on that point only and failed to highlight the other 95 intervals where resources were plentiful and available. Our capable command staff move resources when required.
2. We did not respond to medical calls for 47 minutes and neither did any other non-medical personnel since, there were no calls during that period/ Ambulance NB, WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE and medical calls are not the core responsibility of our fire service.
3. We stacked one call at one location — something that happens several times a day for service providers of all kinds including our hospital — for 15 minutes with alarms going off and NO SIGN OF SMOKE OR FIRE and continued to be monitored and prioritized accordingly by trained commanders.

Do you see the firefighters’ post now in a new light with these facts?

Context matters.

The rest of the story matters.

This was hardly a deficiency and it was managed appropriately. You were not in danger and you are not in danger.

If we were going to staff 100% coverage for all scenarios at all times, we would already be bankrupt — and we almost were. Like in your households, you can’t spend money you don’t have.

Last year, as you all know, we restructured our budgets to deal with a $10-million dollar deficit. That deficit was caused by a low growth rate of 1% and costs going up at 3%, mostly wages. The problem is simple to understand: if your costs grow faster than your budget, you’ll be out of money fast. Thankfully, We have turned a corner, we have addressed critical barriers and we are focused on our full potential in the future. Some groups, like our Protective Services Unions, however, continue to resist change and the necessity of the role they play in the sustainability of our great city.

A Leaderless Response

Resistance to speak openly about the challenges we face and the need for change is an urgent cultural challenge we must fight at City Hall. If our leaders won’t speak about these challenges in a consistent, open and transparent way, who do you think is going to?

Following is information that I received from our City Manager after the post from the firefighters’ union. I’m choosing to pass it along publicly to you in my concern for the community, however, you should be hearing this information from the City Manager himself and the Fire Chief directly.

In the absence of this type of communication, you’ll continue to hear from me.

In addition to the facts above, here’s what I’ve been told:

There has been plenty of uninformed chatter on social media about how the events unfolded and that the lack of resources was due to closing Station 8 in Millidgeville. The fact is ,if Station #8 had been open, there still would have been challenges that evening.Regarding reducing medical support, it is NOT within the mandate of our Fire Department to provide this. It is the responsibility of Ambulance NB (ANB). Fire department deployment is an optional bonus when resources are available.First responders MANAGE risks, they are never provided the resources to eliminate ALL risks. We help when we can, but we do not structure ourselves to do their job for ANB and we do not fund our workers and departments to take on other’s responsibilities. If there are insufficient response times and resources to deploy to medical emergencies, your complaints should be directed to ANB, not our fire department.

Our City Manager and Fire Chief should be telling the public that, not me and certainly not the firefighters’ union.

Weather incidents such as thunder, rain, flood, and lightning storms have always created intense response activity periods. We have previously stacked and prioritized emergency calls (suspended medical response) and redeployed our response units during those previous occasions when there was intense demand for service.

Fire responds to over 5,000 calls annually, out of which over 3,000 are medical first response calls (again, not our core responsibility) and close to 1,000 are false alarms. There were approximately 365 fire-related calls in SJ. Essentially one per day.

How many times a day do you think the emergency room lights up at the Regional Hospital? You probably don’t know because they haven’t hired photographers and don’t post it to social media every single time.

Friday, March 26th was NOT a new experience for SJFD.

No fire department can be resourced to meet all possible emergencies. It is simply unaffordable. The same holds true for police, ambulance / paramedic services and military forces.

You resource to REASONABLE levels that satisfy MOST circumstances and then prioritize through trained command teams and the allocation of resources when the situation demands alternative approaches.

This is normal.

This is what professionals do.

First responders manage risk and ours are very good at it.

We call them professionals because they are. Our fire department is the second-largest fire service in the Maritime’s already; we already have more resources than most of our peers; how much is too much? How much can we afford?

How This Behaviour Impacts the Safety of Our City

Strangely, the biggest threat to public safety in Saint John and many other cities is the unwillingness of unions and their membership to realize there isn’t an endless pot of money.

We have to cut services because those very same services cost more than we can afford, simple as that. We absolutely have fewer members today than we did years ago and that’s because unreasonable wage demands caused layoffs and station closures. That will continue as long as these unreasonable wage demands remain. Unions were warned these cuts would come in light of their actions and demands — IT WAS ACCURATELY PREDICTED BY ALL — and their actions show that, when it comes to finances, they simply don’t care.

Protective services unions have had the last 15 years to be part of the solution and especially over the last several years with historically low growth rates in our community. What did they choose to do? Manipulate the system for raises, while communicating day-to-day activities to make sure we always feel scared.

How do they do this you might ask?

• By donating to political parties and individual candidates,
• By attending $500.00 per plate fundraisers,
• By meeting with elected officials to manipulate outcomes in the union’s favor,
• By bargaining in bad faith and leveraging a broken arbitration system to leverage wage increases well above affordability,
• By cashing in the favors owed from supposed election support,
• By using sensationalism to exaggerate information shared with the public,
• By attacking the rare member of the public or elected official that speaks out against the imbalance of power, and so much more.

Think about it; can you imagine if soldiers, paramedics, nurses, surgeons, front-line workers, constantly tweeted their activities? This is not simple communication, this is to make sure that, when wage negotiations come around like right now, the community will BLINDLY support them, motivated by this fear.

It’s time to wake up

The citizens of this city have been let down, misled, taken advantage of, and proverbially “held hostage” by our protective services unions for decades. And not just here in Saint John, but in cities around the country. There is an entitlement amongst our first responders that they somehow are above any sense of fiscal reality, affordability, their need to contribute to the overall sustainability of the community, and, most importantly, the overall quality of life of citizens.

In this municipal election, protective services unions are trying to support candidates who are making uneducated promises to restore funding cuts that our Council made last fall. Let me be crystal clear: these promises are being made, reportedly, with support bought by highly politicized unions with no regard for the impacts to other core services that we all depend on. At the very least, let the recently approved fire services study determine the actual needs and resources. It’s due back in [month] of this year.

They have had more than enough time and resources have been provided so that they could understand the context and complexities of our situation. Any candidate making these blind promises to restore budgets without equal attention to the after-effects will sabotage the sustainability of the city, your kids and grandkid’s futures, and our present day growth.

Yes, it’s that big a risk.

If funding was restored we would see massive cuts to transit, recreation, parks, roads, snow plowing and many other valuable services that we also have an obligation to fund.

If candidates will sell citizens’ interests away for the promise of support from these special interest groups, they will do it over and over again during their terms on Council and we’ll all lose. It’s time to wake up and stand up to these behaviors and bad actors. If you are not running to make a difference in citizens’ lives, if you don’t understand your role in the governance model, and you’re not prepared to make tough decisions, please take your name off the ballot.

Greedy Gets Greedier. More Deliberately Hidden Facts…

• The Fire and Police unions have refused to agree to affordable terms in contract negotiations over the last year (and years prior), continue to do so, and are holding out for bigger raises, while many people in our community are happy to have a job.
• Despite the dire warning in the last round of negotiations in 2017, our growth rate was less than 1% per year, and the City still offered 2% annual wage increases over 5 years, twice our rate of growth in the community they serve. The fire union asked for 7.30%,4.00%,4.00%,3.50% and 2.96% over the life of the contract. A broken arbitration system that has recently been amended didn’t consider local conditions such as affordability for taxpayers, retention, attraction, and economic conditions, has caused great hardship for communities across the region and country, once again choosing firefighters and promises of more work for the arbitrators themselves in the future.
• Unqualified respect, political manipulation, a lack of political will, leads to unsustainable wage increases in cities around the region and country. The unions desire to simply “get paid what others are being paid” is a shell game.
• Local economic conditions and affordability do matter. Saint John is very different in terms of incomes of its citizens, growth rates, debt, etc.
• We had to restructure our budget last year because we were spending 10 million dollars more than we had. Even in our 2021 budget, police and fire receive the single largest investment at $54.5 million dollars.
• We have one of the most expensive fire services in the country and that’s compared to cities with an even larger industrial footprint. We can’t ignore the benchmarks and local economic and employment conditions matter. Sarnia Ontario for example has over 60 industrial sites.

We not only have a cost problem when compared nationally, but we also have the most expensive fire service in New Brunswick too.

Moncton has more people than Saint John does and we spent 8 million dollars more in 2020 alone.

2020 Local Government Statistics NB

• Wages have risen 80% over the last 15 years and each firefighter now costs the taxpayer $133,000.

Wages plus benefits costs for SJ Firefighters

• That’s being paid for by an average taxpayer who makes 35k per year and who likely haven’t even seen their pay increase at the rate of inflation over the last 15 years (only 40% of NB residents received a raise last year and it was 1%).
• ⅓ of the City budget goes to public safety, which means $1045 from a $3035 tax payment. For comparison transit gets $155 and parks $62, recreation and arts gets $147.
• This is even more relevant as we consider that due to Covid-19, we have the highest unemployment rate in New Brunswick and the impacts of Covid will be felt by families and businesses for many years.
• Over 60% of police officers and more than 50% of firefighters take their high salaries and multi-million dollar pensions and choose not to even live in our city.
• The 2020 Fire and Rescue budget is estimated at $24.9m, which represents roughly 15% of the City of Saint John’s operating budget.
• Calls for fire services have decreased by approximately 56% over the last 12 years.
• Benchmarks showed that the per capita service cost in Saint John is $346 vs median observed in comparable municipalities ($180). Gardner Pinfold Report identifies $195 per capita for Sarnia Ontario known for it’s heavy industrial base, with three refineries, an international rail tunnel, numerous chemical plants, a port, one of the biggest rail yards in Canada, an international bridge, and home to the largest solar power generation facility in the world.
• A reduction of $5m in fire cost would bring our per capita cost to $290. Achieving an average of $200 per capita or $10m budget reduction would require total restructuring of fire services in Saint John (i.e. volunteers, wages, collective agreement).
• Police and fire receive $54 million of our $157 million dollar budget. Did you know that of the $54 million total budget, our Fire Chief and Police Chief are responsible for paying $44,828,948 to wages and benefits? That’s where our Chiefs, Council and management need to spend their focus, energy and time. These are difficult conversations, simply because they have been neglected for decades, lack meaningful measurement and monitoring.

Where does Council fit into the bigger financial conversation?

Since the most popular response I get whenever I have shared any details of this colossal failure is “but Council gave itself a raise”, how does the Council fit into the financial picture?

• We had 11 members of the Council in 2020 and the TOTAL cost to taxpayers was $465,000. That is an average of $42,272 per member.
• There are no benefits such as medical, dental, pension, sick time, etc.
• Council’s actual pay is $88,000 for the Mayor, $42,600 for the Deputy Mayor, and $32,600 for a Councillor, and this is the total cost to taxpayers when it comes to pay.
• Council’s pay was adjusted 2x in the last 17 yrs after completing an independent study. When this was done, we set our pay below the average of the comparable cities not at the top of the pay range.
• In 2019 (the last workforce report), there were 917 total employees in the city, and as a comparator, 724 would have a higher cost to the taxpayer than the Mayor’s cost, and the rest of the Council would have the lowest cost. They are the LOWEST PAID on the City’s payroll (while I have your interest in this wonderful job, there’s an election in May!)
• The remaining wages and benefits costs in this year’s budget, after you take out Council’s $465,000 are well over $85 million dollars. The people that will be making the 465k next year are going to have oversight and responsibility for over $150 million of your dollars. What I’ve experienced is that the smallest dollar amounts in the budget get the most attention. This has to change.

How Do Other Municipalities Manage Fire Cost Differently?

(from the EY report to the city):

• Use a mix of volunteer and paid firefighters
• Less stringent rules on number of firefighters per truck
• Use reciprocity agreement with neighbor municipalities to supplement capacity
• Leverage capacity of industrial players
• Only dispatch fire services when necessary for medical calls and not jointly with Ambulance Services
• Implemented lighter vehicle with reduced staffing to respond to selected medical calls

We are up against professional international lobbyists with deep pockets

Our local firefighter union is part of an international lobby organization that is incredibly well funded and invests heavily in political influence. The goal is for every jurisdiction at all costs to raise wages, even if that means jeopardizing public safety. We can’t count on this organization to care about the financial well-being of Saint John taxpayers.

The Attorney General should be investigating the behaviors between Protective Services Unions, Politicians and other decision-makers, for price-fixing.

Any candidate in this election who is already promising to restore funding that was cut to fire or police are either reckless or uninformed. They will be downloading the cost of your unfounded fears onto the ability of our children to live in a fair and supportive community. In real terms, that will require over 3 million dollars of service adjustments from other areas (already having been cut for years), or a tax increase.

The fire union must act in an open and transparent way by disclosing all cash, in-kind, and support to candidates of any kind.

From the Firefighting in Canada website:

“In the last decade, fire unions have evolved from local organizations into political machines capable of organizing, fundraising, marketing, and mastering everything from boot drives to election campaigns. Some unions are so powerful they have become political entities themselves, delving into issues that are indirectly related to the fire service but crucially important to the political parties they support.”

The International Association of Firefighter (IAFF) declares on its website that

“The goal of any politician, after having been elected, is to get reelected.” For politicians to do what they promise their constituents, they must remain in office. Lobbying for politicians and helping them win is a powerful tool; those who master this can effectively control, to a degree, the outcome of what used to be uncontrollable circumstances — things like fire-department funding, or legislation on everything from sprinklers to line of duty deaths. Fire unions have always dabbled in the political arena, but only recently have they learned to master the rules and control their destinies by choosing and supporting those who support their own ideologies. The mandate of the IAFF is to support those who support it.”

That’s what municipalities who are trying to manage services and budgets for the good of all citizens are up against. How much more money can we give police and fire? Council approves $54 million for police and fire and they use that money to spend $44,828,948 on wages and benefits. Our current budget allocation, is negatively impacting the quality of life of citizens and our ability to thrive.

Fairness is out the window

We’re talking about a taxpayer that is funding salaries well above the median family income. Taxpayers who live in the city, unlike most firefighters (over 60% of police officers live outside the city and over 50% of firefighters). Most of our taxpayers do not have a pension, unlike all firefighters. Taxpayers have seen their median income rise well below inflation while firefighters have risen more than 80% in the last 15 years.

The City paid 100 million dollars in extra wages — above inflation — to its employees over the last 15 years above inflation and protective services unions led the way. None of these wages has made our city any safer and, in fact, has reduced the level of safety as a result of budget cuts to afford these unaffordable raises. They get 6-figure salaries and all the perks while fire-related calls reduce year-over-year. What do you get? Less safety, less protection, and higher taxes.We have unsustainable costs in our public service and only one taxpayer who pays the bill.

I really don’t want to write this blog, but both police and fire unions have been holding citizens hostage for years. We’ve had a complete failure of management and councils in the past to manage budgets and expectations for wages, benefits, and percentage of our budget. This failure is going to keep the city from achieving its full potential.

Protective services unions use OUR deep respect for the work their members do against the sustainability of the city and the overall wellbeing of the community.

While presenting themselves as having only the best interest of the community in mind, our admiration has clouded the necessity to position the city to fully succeed. Yes, of course, we need to invest in police and fire, however, we also need to invest in roads, transit, parks, recreation, growth, and participation in the elimination of poverty, affordable housing, and other deeply rooted social challenges.

In fact, in the middle of the worst global crisis in most people’s lives, both police and fire unions, have refused to settle agreements which would have seen them earn their large salaries and maintain benefits.

Negotiations are often one-sided, take years, and the unions are unimaginative and obstructionist, a position that most Canadians couldn’t afford to take in employment agreements.

Real negotiations are not occurring and have not occurred in a long time.

We already know what will be the outcome of their demands if nothing changes and If we don’t take control of our future and design it the way we must, we’ll watch the potential we have ahead of us, slip away. That’s exactly what happened over the last two decades. It’s up to us to stand up now.

These conversations evoke such strong reactions, because some have defined success as winning or losing. It’s important to acknowledge that first responders are highly respected, should be paid well and already are among the highest paid firefighters in New Brunswick, the Maritime’s, and Canada.

Are we going to elect a Council that will demand those changes?

Where did we go wrong?

What this all points to is a failure over the years of councils, senior leadership, management and the public.

1. We failed to accept the leadership responsibility to share with the public the real barriers to our prosperity, develop plans to address them and take action.
2. We’ve failed to define success in a balanced way so that citizens’ needs came first. So that they would thrive economically, socially and culturally.
3. We had poorly defined Growth outcomes, no long-term financial plan and policies (now in place).
4. We failed to put together proper advocacy for Tax Fairness and Regional Equitable cost-sharing (now in place).
5. Councils got addicted to the promises of support from unions and lost sight of their core responsibilities to the citizens of the city. Budgets were not controlled which, in the end, is the ultimate responsibility of the council.
6. Elected officials lacked political will as a group or prioritized their own political aspirations.
7. Collective agreements have been allowed to get out of balance and favour employees and this results in severe difficulty for managers to manage.
8. Operational items were prioritized over the management of the dollars.
9. Decisions were short-term.
10. The organization’s (City Hall) culture is too internally focused and lacks the urgency needed to compete globally and adapt to significant, rapid change.
11. The public has not been engaged enough in these issues, has clouded its respect for first responders with the need to manage more proactively and/or has chosen to simply stay quiet.
12. Relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) are entirely missing and, consequently, not reported publicly to allow us and the public to measure the fire departments performance, successes, and failures. Instead, we have to rely on personal opinion and politically-motivated messaging. This allows anyone to manipulate public opinion rather than public fact.

No Negotiations with Protective Services

“It is the union’s choice to cut services instead of adjust wages.” — that’s me. I said that last summer. This has been going on for a long, long time.

We’ve tried every other approach in terms of working through these challenges, we’re unable to effectively negotiate with our Protective Services Unions, and this is a local, regional, and national problem.

Our local firefighter union is part of an International Lobbyist organization that is incredibly well-funded and invests heavily in political influence. The new 24 hour shift schedule, an example of this national lobby, means a first-class firefighter with 4 yrs service (after vacations and statutory holidays), works 79x 24 hour shifts per 365 day year.

The goal for protective service unions is for every jurisdiction to achieve maximum pay raises and for this to be duplicated across the country and at all costs. Therefore, we can’t count on this organization to care about the financial well being of Saint John taxpayers.

It is the union’s choice to cut services instead of adjust wages. Council, after lengthy deliberations over the last 3 plus years, has made difficult and necessary decisions. This includes very difficult decisions related to our workforce. The alternative is even more service cuts or tax increases. Neither is the right choice.

We All Care About Safety.,That’s Why We Approved $54 million for it to service a city of 68,000 people.

If this is really about public safety, then the union should be part of the solution.

The last occurrence where units were tied up, our Fire chief said in his statement that at no time were any lives in jeopardy. Our firefighters and command officers were able to prioritize and execute our public safety service mission “to help people” in the very best interest of the citizens of this community.

The use of dramatic imagery and fear tactics by the union does nothing to keep our city safe. These strategies are used to pressure support for higher wages and not with public safety in mind.

No community has an unlimited number of safety services. However, and unlike any other public safety service, while our resources are excellent, they are never unlimited and challenges of busy days do arise.

We have to do what every organization is doing across the country; innovate, accept change, face reality, and make sure we don’t lose sight of our citizens’ ability to pay.

Police and fire services make up one-third of Saint John’s budget. It would be irresponsible to get to a balanced budget by looking at only two of every three dollars we spend.

We’ve been talking about these issues for decades and some of the same tactics have been being used over and over again. Citizens already pay too much in taxes and water bills and I’m not going to ask citizens to pay more.

Pivoting to focus on what comes next is going to take courage, risk-management, and strong relationships. This will be a challenge for us because we’ve been burdened with a scarcity mindset for so long. We are used to competing with each other for resources, jobs, and opportunities. The muscles of collaboration haven’t been used in a while.

It’s going to feel weird, but we owe it to ourselves to give it a try. We can’t squander the effort that has gone into creating this opportunity we now have.

Leadership is critical.

In The upcoming municipal election, I am expecting candidates to continue down this path, accelerating our momentum and our optimism — We cannot slow to a crawl because we’ve lost our focus and discipline. We need to carefully choose our next set of municipal leaders, selecting for the most collaborative, for those who want to build on what we’ve accomplished, and those who are focused on removing barriers so we can keep growing.

But leadership doesn’t just happen around the council table. It happens around the kitchen table too.

The region we want will only come to fruition through collaboration and a focus on thinking big. We need to find ways to help each other. To join in the effort to remove the barriers that stand in our way. To be champions for each other’s successes.

So much is possible, but we need to make a very real pivot in 2021.

We need to pivot away from a scarcity mindset to a collaboration mindset.

• Don’t tell council what to spend money on without also telling them what to cut. While you’re at it, declare your interests because how we spend our money is how we express our values.
• If you are a candidate in this election, please study the issues, read the reports and resist the urge to make promises that will negatively impact the sustainability of the city and its citizens.
• If you are an employee of the city of Saint John, please think about your role in the prosperity of the city and the need for us all, to deliver maximum value for the hard earned money our citizens pay in taxes.
• If you are a citizen in our great city, please become more familiar with the challenges and opportunities we face.

Separate the respect we all have for first responders, from the need to manage the unsustainable costs and restore balance in the working relationship.

Become more vocal in sharing your opinion and expectations of our great city, so that citizens can thrive economically, socially and culturally.

Please vote on May 10th. Get engaged in this election, by asking good questions of the candidates, and by selecting those candidates that will deliver on their oath of office. That pledge is to the best interest of the city and its citizens (you), not our protective services unions.

Thank you for taking the time,

-Don.