San Antonio, firefighters union agree to restart contract negotiations

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — The City of San Antonio and the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association have each said they agree to meet next week to restart contract negotiations.

The fire union announced Thursday morning it invited the city to come to the fire union hall next week to begin talking about a new contract, but also submitted an open records request to get information it deems important for negotiations.

Chief negotiator for the union, Ricky Poole, said at a news conference that it has had an issue with transparency with the city.

San Antonio city attorney Andy Segovia responded to the request Thursday, stating the city accepts the union’s invitation to meet next Wednesday.

“We acknowledge that there is a ‘perception’ by the union that the city is not willing to share information,” Segovia wrote to the union.  “To the contrary, the city has responded to and closed out 32 open records requests from the union.  In responding to open records requests, we have provided thousands of documents to the union.”

The city attorney stated the mediated sessions from 2017 will provide a good foundation to restart negotiations this time around.

Poole stated that having a new city manager downtown helped in part bring the firefighters to the table, as did the dismissal of the city’s lawsuits, but the biggest motivator was city councilman Greg Brockhouse’s letter saying it was time to negotiate.

Poole described the letter as being conciliatory.

The city has not yet stated who will be representing the government in negotiations.