Firefighters in the Windsor-Severance Fire Protection District should know by February whether they’ll be part of the International Association of Fire Fighters union.
Firefighter Erik Morse, 30, is slated to be the union president and said the firefighters are in the process of submitting their application to join the union. There was a 100 percent buy-in — 24 of 24 eligible career firefighters — to unionize.
“We’re going to try to get together the week between Christmas and New Year’s to finalize our bylaws, vote on it and hopefully be able to send our packet off the first week of January,” Morse said.
The recent investigation of the fire district by the Weld District Attorney’s Office, the resignation of fire board members Tom Buxmann and Jerrod Schneider and the investigation last spring by the fire board of five career paid officers and one volunteer firefighter for inappropriate conduct during a leadership team meeting in March had nothing to do with the firefighters joining the IAFF union, Morse said.
“When we were having our union organizational meetings, it really never came up,” said Morse, a 1999 Windsor High School graduate who has been a full-time firefighter since 2005. “No one ever said, ‘I want protection’ or ‘I want to have a buffer.’ It was mostly political.”
Morse said the firefighters have had at least five meetings on the union subject in the past two years.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Morse said. “It’s just inconvenient that the timing comes up that we’re finally getting all of our paperwork finalized at the same time that members are resigning off the fire board.”
Morse said joining a union will give the firefighters a voice on ballot issues such as a mill-levy increase or the endorsement of a particular fire board candidate during elections.
“If we join the IAFF and we do it as a professional group, we can be able to take a stance or say one way or the other on ballot issues,” Morse said. “That was one of the main reasons it got brought up was years ago talking about being able to have a political voice.”
Morse emphasized that this isn’t a union that will be demanding more pay and better benefits.
Fire district board member Del Maxfield understands why the firefighters want to form a union, although he doesn’t agree with it.
“I personally do not believe public employees should be part of a union,” Maxfield said. “However, I also believe we tend to restrict employees from time to time in their political involvement, and these guys will have a little bit better position to voice their political stance.”
