WILL ANYONE succeed in rescuing Boston taxpayers from another destructive fire department contract? A three-member review panel chaired by James Shannon, president of the National Fire Protection Association, is just the latest group to try.
Last week's panel report is one in a long line of critical audits of the Boston Fire Department published since 1994. But it arrived with the greatest sense of urgency. In August, two Boston firefighters died battling a restaurant blaze in West Roxbury. A city already in mourning was stunned after officials who had been briefed on autopsy reports told the Globe that firefighter Paul Cahill was drunk and that firefighter Warren Payne had traces of cocaine in his system when they died.
Impaired firefighters pose a serious potential risk to the public and themselves. Coping with heavy hoses, hand tools, and breathing apparatuses is tough enough without the disorienting effects of drugs or alcohol. It would be unconscionable for the Menino administration and Boston Firefighters Local 718 to arrive at a new four-year contract that does not call for random alcohol and drug testing of firefighters. The Shannon panel recommends such testing "from the commissioner down to entry-level firefighters." Yet similar proposals died on the collective bargaining table in both 1999 and 2004.
The drug testing policy for the fire department is illogical. Recruits must submit to drug testing as a condition of employment and again shortly after hiring. But in subsequent years, when firefighters are most likely to be suffering from accumulated stress, there is no reliable testing.
Fire union president Edward Kelly wants to link mandatory drug testing to an incentive plan that would bump up salaries of firefighters who agree to maintain a high level of fitness. But that proposal doesn't address the public's underlying concern: that a firefighter called upon to save lives and property may arrive at the scene impaired. Random drug and alcohol testing should be standard procedure for public safety personnel, not a bargaining chip that the union can trade for a salary increase.
Right now, negotiations for a new contract appear to be at an impasse. The Menino administration is seeking arbitration from the state Joint Labor Management Committee. The committee, which oversees labor negotiations for public safety workers, would do the public a great service by accepting the case and making mandatory drug testing a must for any settlement. Let an arbitrator decide if a proposed 14 percent raise over four years warrants the Menino administration's demands for changes in sick leave policy, light duty, disability, and other issues that are on the table. But no extra compensation should be required to assure that firefighters are clear-headed when they answer the bell.
