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economist sunsuntribune news saturday jan 17 2004 11 firefighters want parity with police from page 1 weve always gotten but the town is still pushing he said were not asking to be the highest paid firefighters in the province we just wantwhat is compara ble foyrp former fire chief jim sales now over seeing the department as the towns commissioner of community and fire services said its not that simple its not realistic to compare fire and police in all cases he said the truth is we cannot just give in to every desire of the union when they are not willing to negotiate because ultimately we have to be responsible to the taxpayers but mr brassard said firefighters in hamilton and just recently toronto have already signed similar deals fifty feet across the street in toronto they are getting comparable wages to yrjr so why not here he asked cannot strike firefighters are deemed an essential service and therefore cannot legally strike if negotiations reach an impasse they can ask for binding arbitration mr brassard said they did so in december but not willingly we win every time anyway so its really a waste of time energy and money its going to cost the association 50000 probably double that for the jim sales comments on treat ment of markham firefighters called negotiating ploy town and thats paid direcdy by the tax payer he said its really an unwillingness on behalf of the town to make a decision and allow someone else to make a decision for them even though its going to go against them at the end of the day it really does nt help employee relations either employee relations have improved since 1999 when the association signed its last contract it was the only contract in the last decade to be negotiated with out an arbitrator then there were upwards of 60 grievances filed by the towns 200plus firefighters now there are only eight union secretary scott daniel who was president at the time said the town did make an effort to improve the rocky relationship it had with the depart ments personnel but it looks like the animosity is growing again we resolved those issues he said and now here we go again mr sales said he was brought in as fire chief in 1999 to help solve the labour relations issues and take responsibility for modernizing the towns fire services a goal he claims to have almost reached were really trying to create a posi tive relationship with firefighters and i think if you ask most of them we have he said mr sales said a negotiated settle ment is the goal for the town and the problems it has run into have stemmed from the union having had three sets of negotiating committees since april 2003 with mr brassards team coming in just two months ago new executive every time they change the execu tive its back to square one he explained in fact mr sales suggested mr brassards comments on the treatment of firefighters is simply a negotiating ploy hes doing everything he can to get a settlement he said but as you know there are two sides to every story injured m a fall or car accident call minken assoc lawyers 905 4777011 190 main street n unionville no payment until settlement rrsps stouffville union chief confident of deal wwtchurchstouffville firefighters contract expired in december and both management and the sixperson union are anticipating smooth negotiations leading up to the departments second collective bargaining agreement firefighters association president john winters said the first agreement signed in 2002 was done without an arbitrator and he is confident 2004 will be no different were thinking positively he said fire chief tim beckett agreed were still in the early stages of nego tiations he said but we have a good working relationship and open commu nication and were positive we can work things out martin derbyshire dont invest another dollar in rrsps until you attend this workshop learn 3 alternative savings solutions to rrsps reduce income tax by 50 on retirement income keep old age security from 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