Talks Reach an Impasse for County, Firefighters : Negotiations: The head of the union calls the contract offer a ‘total insult.’ The group thinks that the public employees association got a better deal.

Negotiations have broken down between Ventura County and the 378-member firefighters’ union, which today will consider a plan to picket the County Government Center for better wages.

“Things are probably going to escalate,” said Ken Maffei, president of the Ventura County Professional Firefighters’ Assn., which has worked since Feb. 1 without a contract. “What they offered us . . . was a total insult.”

Maffei said the union has vowed never to send county emergency services workers out on strike, which would violate state law.

However, he said, the union will continue to urge its members not to volunteer for extra work, a job action that began Feb. 1 and left helicopter crews shorthanded during the Feb. 12 flood of the Ventura River.

The job action did not hamper rescue efforts, but it has focused attention on negotiations between the county and the firefighters’ union, which have reached the second impasse in two months.

Last week, the union spurned the county’s latest offer of a 3.1% salary increase spread over 18 months, largely because it believes that the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County got a better deal, Maffei said.

The public employees association, the county’s largest union, represents workers ranging from nurses to planners. Its members voted in January to approve a new 18-month contract, which Maffei said amounted to an 8.37% hike in pay and benefits.

However, the county’s top labor-relations official said that about 3,400 of the 4,200 employees represented by the public employees association will get wage-and-benefit hikes similar to the 3.1% offered to the firefighters.

The remaining 800 employees will get a 7% or 8% increase only because the top end of their pay brackets was raised by 5%, said Edward McLean, assistant personnel director.

“We’ve put out there 3.1%, which was the increase in the Consumer Price Index for January since last year,” McLean said. “We believe that’s an extremely fair offer. . . . There’s a lot of people out there suffering, and about 8 1/2% in this county are unemployed, and I think it’s a responsible offer.”

Maffei said the offer is inadequate.

“We have not kept up with the pace of inflation or the cost of living,” Maffei said. “In all honesty, we’re not going to be able to catch up with other departments, either. Los Angeles city and county firefighters make about 40% more than us.”

Maffei said four Ventura County firefighters quit last year to work in Los Angeles County, and 30 to 40 more plan this year to take the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s application test.

In response, McLean said, “We have no recruitment or retention problems in the Fire Department.”

The county’s 3.1% offer to the firefighters’ union came just two months after public employee association officials signed their contract, and seven months after the Board of Supervisors froze cost-of-living increases for all county employees and prohibited raises for managers and elected officials for one year.

The raise approved for public employee association members and the one offered to the firefighters would take effect July 1, when the new fiscal year begins.

Public employee association President Barry L. Hammitt declined to comment on the specifics of the firefighters’ negotiations, but he sympathized with the firefighters’ union over the latest offer.

“I’d be unhappy if a very large pay increase came in to any other group of employees to the detriment of any people we represent,” Hammitt said. “In hard times, there has to be some equity.”

Although the Professional Firefighters Assn. has not removed emergency workers from their posts, it has encouraged them to give up volunteer work--such as school fire-safety programs and answering phones in the public affairs office, officials said.

The job action also compromised safety around the rescue helicopters that flew during the Feb. 12 flood of the Ventura River, said Sheriff’s Lt. Arve Wells. The copters may have to fly again during summer brush fires or other emergencies, he said.

Seven firefighters ordinarily join seven sheriff’s deputies on a volunteer basis to earn overtime pay as helicopter crew chiefs, said Wells, head of the county Search and Rescue Unit. The crew chiefs assist pilots and help maintain passenger safety in and around the helicopters.

During the flood, which killed a homeless man and damaged dozens of recreational vehicles at the Ventura Beach RV Resort, crew chiefs would have helped passengers board and leave the aircraft during the rescue operation. One crew chief also would have acted as an air-traffic controller for all the craft, including numerous helicopters used by news cameramen.

But two of the seven firefighter volunteers had quit before the job action, and four others heeded the union’s call to avoid volunteer work, Wells said.

Wells said he and a sergeant had to fill in, and there was no air-traffic controller to guide as many as 10 emergency and news helicopters in the air at once.

The helicopters completed several dangerous rescues without incident, plucking stranded RV park residents from atop their vehicles. But the scene was not as safe as it could have been, Wells said.

Officers from other police agencies--not specially trained to work around the hazards of spinning helicopter rotors--had to fill in as ground crew chiefs, he said.

The one rank-and-file firefighter who worked as a crew chief that day has become the target of criticism by fellow union members. His photograph has been circulated with the word “scab” printed across it, and he has received numerous prank pages on his department beeper, Wells said.

“His premise is that unlike some of the other voluntary assignments, this particular unit deals with emergency calls, and he felt he couldn’t compromise that,” Wells said.

The firefighter could not be reached for comment.