Toledo firefighters still without contract after more than a year

TOLEDO, Ohio —

Contract negotiations between Toledo Fire and Rescue and the city of Toledo have officially reached the one-year mark.

Monday marked 365 days since firefighters have had a contract.

“They just want a deal,” Joseph Cira, president of Toledo Firefighters Local 92 said.

Negotiations happen every three years and Cira said they typically start three months before a contract expires. Negotiations for this contract started even earlier and well before the last contract expired on March 31, 2024.

“This last year, our negotiation team went off actually even before that because we had a change,” Cira said. “Toledo fire recently took over ALS operations, so advanced life support operations, for the county.”

One year later, a deal still has not been reached.

“There’s no reason that the city, mayor’s office and Local 92 can’t sit down and work out a deal right now,” Cira said.

Of the 34 items on the table, Cira said 33 have been agreed upon. Many of those are about the life squad and paramedics changes. The last item still in limbo is pay.

“We cannot strike. I mean, we’re here to protect the citizens. That’s our main objective is to be here for the people of Toledo,” Cira said. 

In March, Toledo police’s union, Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association, secured an overall 16% raise, divided up as 3% for years one and two, 4% for year 3 and a 6% base wage adjustment.

The increases still need to be approved by city council.

Cira said Local 92 never asked for anything more than 15%. Now, they’re asking for the same exact deal.

“For us, all we wanted was the pattern bargaining with police,” Cira said. “We have 50 years of continuous wages down to the thousandth of a cent. We just wanted whatever they got.”

A city spokesperson provided the following statement to WTOL 11

From the City’s perspective, we’re nearly at the finish line. Of the 34 issues on the table, we’ve reached tentative agreements on 33—covering important priorities like increasing the number of paramedics from 250 to 305 by next year, raising the base wage for paramedics from 6% to 10%, and creating eight new floater positions to support firefighter training and development. The one remaining issue is wages. And even on that front, there are no further negotiations planned—both the City and Local 92 have agreed to let a fact-finder make that decision. Our meeting with the fact-finder will take place at the end of the month, and we’re confident a final contract will be in place shortly after.

“They’re the ones that declared impasse, are taking us to fact-finding,” Cira said. “We agreed obviously because we’re, you know, we’re not trying to be adversarial. We just want what’s best for our members.”

The city spokesperson said the meeting with that fact finder is at the end of the month and they’re confident there’ll be a contract shortly after.   

The year-long negotiations eat into what should be the current contract. Once a deal is reached, the start date will be marked as April 1, 2024. Cira says it will likely expire in December 2026.

Although an agreement has not been reached for the current contract, Cira said he’ll have to start working on negotiations in 18 months.