PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia firefighters union recently encouraged its hundreds of unvaccinated members to file for eight hours of overtime pay each time they are required to complete weekly at-home COVID-19 tests before going to work, according to a union memo obtained by The Inquirer.
The Fire Department last week rejected overtime requests for at-home testing submitted by members of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22, union president Mike Bresnan said. But the union is now pursuing a labor grievance over the issue, he said.
Local 22 fought strenuously, but ultimately unsuccessfully, against Mayor Jim Kenney’s months-long effort to institute a vaccine mandate for unionized city employees that took full effect last month.
Bresnan said about 700 of the 2,300 firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs represented by Local 22 have secured exemptions from the mandate, almost all of them claiming they have religious beliefs that prevent them from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
An arbitration agreement over the mandate allowed the city to set procedures for mandatory testing for employees exempted from the mandate, and the Fire Department has required employees to test weekly before coming to work, Bresnan said.
Because a separate department rule instructs firefighters to file a minimum of eight hours of overtime if they are required to work on days off, the union is contending that its members are entitled to eight hours of pay if they test for COVID-19 and upload their test results to the city website on days off, he said.
“Whatever it is — 15 minutes, 20 minutes out of my time to do this to be able to report to work — you gotta pay us,” Bresnan said. “We’re not trying to be greedy. We’re just trying to follow the rules like they want to follow the rules. Why would we want to see the Fire Department’s funding be sucked down for this?”
The Fire Department has spent tens of millions of dollars annually on overtime in recent years, leading to a series of critical reports from the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, a state board that oversees city finances. In the first three quarters of the 2022 fiscal year, the department accounted for $69.8 million of the city’s $185.8 million in overtime spending, according to PICA’s most recent report.
Kenney spokesperson Kevin Lessard said that allowing eight hours of overtime pay for at-home testing “would impact the City’s overtime costs — especially in departments, like Fire, that have a significant number of employees with approved exemptions.”
“It is the City’s position that the time to perform both the at-home test and log the results of that test is de minimis and doesn’t significantly impose upon an employee’s schedule,” Lessard said in a statement. “For this reason, employees required to test at-home are not compensated for their time taking these tests and logging the results.”
The union’s opposition to the mandate has continued despite evidence that the vaccine has greatly reduced deaths among people who contract the virus, and despite tragedy having stuck their own ranks.
Firefighter Eric Gore died in 2020 after contracting the coronavirus on duty, and the passing of firefighter John Evans, who died of COVID-19 last year, was classified as a line-of-duty death.
Some firefighters were placed on leave last month when the mandate took effect, with the potential of being fired if they didn’t come in compliance with the policy within 30 days. But Bresnan said that so far no firefighters have been fired, with some of those who were in jeopardy of being terminated getting vaccinated and others getting exemption requests approved.
Bresnan said Kenney “backed himself into a corner” by pushing forward with the mandate despite not being legally allowed to force workers to get inoculated if they have religious beliefs that prevent them from getting the vaccine.
“Their easy way out was they’ll just approve them,” he said, adding that his union’s members have secured religious exemptions with very few exceptions by citing scripture: “I guess there’s stuff in the Bible, the Quran, or the Torah.”
The city requires workers applying for exemptions from the mandate to sign affidavits explaining why their religious beliefs prevent them from getting vaccinated.
“Our obligation is to follow the law, which allows for exemptions for sincere religious beliefs,” Lessard said. “The City’s exemption program was appropriately designed to accommodate employees with those sincere religious beliefs.”
