Naked City

Members of the Austin Association of Professional Firefighters on March 8 turned over to City Hall a series of petitions bearing 12,000 signatures, moving the group one step closer to its goal of having city voters approve a ballot measure authorizing the city and the union to forge future labor agreements through collective bargaining.

Currently, the firefighters, like the Austin Police Association, use the "meet and confer" process authorized under state law for Austin and Houston's public safety unions; 19 fire departments in Texas use traditional collective bargaining. The latter, unlike meet and confer, allows the details of negotiations to be open and accessible to the public and requires the city and union to use a third-party arbitrator in the event the two sides reach an impasse during negotiations. The AAPF and city suspended their latest round of meet-and-confer talks in early 2003.

The task of determining whether the firefighters collected enough signatures to land the issue on the May 15 ballot now falls to City Clerk Shirley Brown. AAPF President Mike Martinez said he feels confident the union secured at least the 8,434 signatures necessary to have the City Council call for the election. While council members could decide there isn't enough time before the spring election to place the matter on the ballot, Martinez feels confident that won't happen. The next date would be the November general election, which means more voters would have a chance to weigh in. Brown's posting on today's council agenda presumes a May 15 election, along with a $250,000 appropriation to cover the cost of that vote. The firefighters' measure would be the only city proposition before voters, who will also be choosing AISD and ACC trustees and voting on a Travis Co. hospital district.

Martinez said his organization is pushing forward. "We've accomplished the first part of this campaign, and now we're working on part two," he said, "campaigning for voters."