PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE | BRIAN K. RICE
A United Brotherhood
and Sisterhood
Each of you know that our jobs as firefighters is incredibly intense and it takes a physical and emotional toll on all of us. A career of call after call doesn’t just wear down our physical body but also our spirit, it can really damage your emotional strength.
Firefighters are four times more likely to die of suicide than a traumatic line-of-duty death in any given year. In 2021, 90 firefighters and EMTs died by suicide and in 2020, 126 died by suicide. In many cases, Post-Traumatic Stress Injury is the cause, and too often, our brothers and sisters are attempting to cope alone.
In 2019 our priority bill AB 1116 became law and established a statewide standard for firefighter peer support, and most importantly established confidentiality in the peer support system. Thanks to this law, we have seen peer support programs grow throughout the state and more of our brothers and sisters are using the resource to seek help for behavioral health without fear of losing their job.
However, there is still more work for us to do to change the fire service culture around behavioral health and encourage our brothers and sisters to talk more openly about the challenges of the job on our mental health. That’s why CPF has called on all of its affiliated locals and fire departments to participate in Suicide Prevention and Awareness Stand Down during May 23rd through the 27th. Drills and activities are set aside, replaced by kitchen table discussions with behavioral health and suicide awareness as the focus. Discuss the impact of the job, where to go for resources and how to give and get help.
Thanks to the work of the behavioral health task force, each local and fire department was mailed a packet of resources to help participate in the stand down. For resources or help please visit www.healingourown.org
AT THE STATE CAPITOL
For every single one of us this has been a long two years and each of us has been impacted by COVID-19 one way or another. Throughout this trying time, our goal has always been to present factual and scientifically accurate information about the virus and the vaccine. We believe that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and for the last two years we have encouraged our members to get vaccinated through various education programs and town halls.
Our mission is to also protect your workplace rights as afforded to you by your union. When AB 1993, a proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all public and private employees was introduced, it was clear that this bill would undermine collective bargaining and meet and confer agreements at the local level. Statewide, nearly all our local unions have negotiated over the impacts, effects, and uptake of the vaccine. With local union agreements already in place, we could not stand by as a bill threatened to negate those local level agreements. Thanks to the work of our legislative advocates and local union presidents throughout the state, we successfully worked within the Capitol to have the bill withdrawn and halt further advancement in the legislature. Our opposition to this bill was always about protecting your basic right as a union employee to a voice through collective bargaining and the meet and confer process.
As we look forward to this legislative session, an extraordinarily important priority for CPF is workers’ compensation reform in the presumptions arena. Our presumptions, from cancer to heart, hernia, lung and everything else in between, have long been the cornerstone of protecting our members when they become ill due to the job. However, in the last few decades, because of so-called reforms made by Governors Schwarzenegger and Brown, it has become more common for an employer, their insurer, or a third-party administrator to automatically deny a presumptive claim, facing no material risk of incurring penalties if the claim is ultimately accepted.
It is plain wrong for our members to be outright denied for a presumptive claim and go through the grueling process of fighting the workers’ compensation system. That is why SB 1127 is our priority bill and proposes to address these unfair practices by reforming the penalty structures and timelines regarding presumption cases. Our goal is to increase the penalties for an action deemed to be an unreasonable denial of presumptive benefits and ensure that firefighters who have a reoccurring cancer do not have to race the clock for temporary disability protections to run out.
CPF PRIORITIES IN ACTION
In 2021 we successfully passed AB 450, which removed the EMSA director as sole arbiter of discipline at the state level and sets up an independent board comprised of four working paramedics, one emergency room doctor, and two members of the public, to make final determinations regarding appeals of paramedic disciplinary matters. I’m proud to share that one of our very own San Diego City Firefighters, Local 145 President, Jesse Connor was appointed to the board by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins. The paramedic disciplinary review board will begin reviewing cases in 2023.
FORWARD TOGETHER, UNION STRONG
As we get ready to convene the 48th biennial CPF Convention our theme, ‘Forward Together, Union Strong,’ illustrates solidarity as the keystone to our union’s strength in the state. Though there are issues that members may personally disagree on, the most important thing we do is fight for your wages, benefits, retirement security and working conditions. In the last few years, working in conjunction with our local unions across the state, we have done just that.
On the horizon there is a concerted and continuing effort by anti-union groups to break apart California unions. These groups are funded by organizations whose goal is the wholesale destruction of the union movement. If they can break unions, there will no longer be a challenge when they propose to decrease our wages, raid our pensions, destroy safety standards, and strip us of our workplace rights. Do not be fooled by charlatans who claim to have your best interests at heart but have never demonstrated that by actual work on your behalf to better your lives. CPF and your local union have worked to make your lives better and safer on the job for decades. We will continue to hold true to that mission, because we are firefighters working on behalf of and for firefighters. Our strength is in our unity and when we stand together in solidarity, there is nothing we cannot accomplish together.