7TH DISTRICT REPORT | DAVE GILLOTTE

Protecting Our Members and Those We Serve

The past year has been painful and challenging because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has, however, also been a year that showed the strength of our membership, our union, and our solidarity. Despite overwhelming challenges, we have been able to accomplish so much for our members because we have stood in solidarity and unity with each other to protect our members and their families as they battle on the frontline of a global pandemic.

ON THE COVID-19 FRONTLINES

As we began seeing the impact of the pandemic as early as February 2020, Local 1014 immediately jumped into action, along with LA County Fire and our excellent EMS and Health Services staff, to develop protocols to protect our members. These included ensuring affected members had protocols for quarantining, testing and time off. Local 1014 helped ensure safe station protocols and secured PPE through our political action efforts. Together with our management and training staff, we ensured COVID-compliant drill towers to ensure that we continued to train and prepare recruits, essential as we continue to rebuild staff.

Our EMS and Health Services Staff worked tirelessly to get members get vaccinated. In a record-breaking three days, our EMS staff vaccinated over 2,600 members. We are blessed to have the finest team in the nation taking care of our members. Vaccines are working to reduce our number of COVID-positive members dramatically, but we must stay vigilant with PPE, hand washing and social distancing. We are near the finish line and it is no time to get complacent.

CONTRACT EXTENSION, PLAN C RETIREMENT, AND HEALTHCARE

Local 1014 successfully negotiated a contract extension to continue the discussion on a few critical issues affecting Plan C members. The County offered us the same one-year extension. Our mission is to have a frank discussion with the new CEO on important items affecting Plan C members. Our top priority is to negotiate longevity in rank, or some equivalent, for parity post-PEPRA ruling on Ventura.

We have also crafted a retiree medical trust similar to LACERA Board and Trust to allow both member and County contributions in a no-tax manner for earnings and disbursements for spousal and family medical contributions and expenses in retirement. While we’ve worked hard to protect benefit levels and the defined-benefit system, there is a huge funding problem on retiree medical, and this is one area where impact to earnings and County General Fund can hurt the Fire District in retiree health costs.

PEER SUPPORT

This year, perhaps more than most, we are grateful for the Peer Support Program we have built. As our firefighters continue to face an unprecedented wildfire season and ever-increasing call loads with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our firefighters' mental and physical health has never been more critical. In October, LACoFD officially accepted the donation of two fully trained peer support dogs from the nation’s leading dog training foundations. “Milo” and “Echo” were specially selected and completed hundreds of hours of intense specialized training to support firefighters with PTSI or high levels of anxiety in a variety of situations and settings.

Our Los Angeles County Peer Support Team was called in to support our brothers and sisters in Chula Vista and Santa Clara with four serious burn victims in Chula Vista and a LODD in Santa Clara where Brother Troy Buzzell lost his battle with post-traumatic stress. In Chula Vista, our peer support team and SART (Serious Accident Review Team) spent a couple of weeks helping the department set up incident review, with no discipline or administrative issues, to find lessons learned, train and help their members avoid accidents.

The heartbreaking loss of Brother Buzzell in Santa Clara is a reminder of the importance of building a strong a robust peer and behavioral health program, to reduce and, hopefully, eliminate loss of life due to job related stress. The Santa Clara Fire peer team did an amazing job getting things in place and then peer teams from LA County and surrounding agencies handled the work of reaching out to all three shifts and all those affected by the tragedy, including those in the department, families and retirees.

These important support programs are a direct result of the IAFF and the CPF working in collaboration with the IAFC and Cal Chiefs to build joint resources to support each other on incidents that impact us all.

GIVING BACK TO OUR COMMUNITIES

In addition to providing emergency fire and EMS services, our members also helped our communities struggling with the pandemic. Local 1014 was proud to host our first-ever blood drive benefitting The American Red Cross. The Red Cross is experiencing a severe shortage of blood due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has not only limited donors but also available sites for blood drives.

Additionally, Local 1014 joined Supervisor Hilda Solis, the City of El Monte, and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to help distribute food to over 3,500 families in El Monte. As public servants, our job goes well beyond providing EMS and Fire services for our communities, we are also leaders who are called upon to help in times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic left many of our communities in dire economic circumstances. Our members stepped up to help our communities in need.

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