A state appeals court ruled last week that City of Lockport firefighters are entitled to state arbitration on the issue of the reduction of staffing on each shift resulting from the abolition of the city’s ambulance service in September 2014.
The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a December 2014 ruling by State Supreme Court Justice Frank Caruso that the city was not allowed to stop the arbitration sought by the firefighters union, but it emphasized that it was not taking sides in the dispute over whether the city was allowed by the union contract to cut staffing and do away with city ambulances.
That, the Rochester-based five-judge panel said, is “a matter for the arbitrator to resolve.”
The Lockport Professional Fire Fighters Association filed for arbitration even before the city parked the ambulances, because the city moved in April 2014 to reduce the required minimum number of firefighters on a shift to seven, from nine, as a means of reducing the department’s overtime costs.
The minimum personnel level was cut to six after the city turned ambulance duties over to Twin City Ambulance.