Salinas firefighters, frustrated with pay and overtime shifts, have served the city a binding arbitration notice in hopes of reaching an agreement in contract negotiations.
The department has been plagued by overtime with firefighters working 2,082 shifts of overtime in 2017, said Josh Hostetter, president of the Salinas Firefighters Association. These shifts are 24-hour shifts and 846 of these shifts were mandatory, said Hostetter.
The overtime shifts resulted in $2.7 million in overtime for the firefighters last year.
“Yes, there was a lot of overtime last year,” said Mayor Joe Gunter. “We had two major fires in the state and we sent firefighters well on overtime. We had no control over that. We are diligently hiring.”