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Firefighters File Unfair Labor Practice Charge

Philadelphia City Hall and political coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer City Hall bureau.

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Firefighters File Unfair Labor Practice Charge

POSTED: Tuesday, September 4, 2012, 2:22 PM

Troy Graham on Twitter @troyjgraham

Local 22 of the Philadelphia firefighters union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against the city, in an effort to get audio recordings and written reports from a Kensington warehouse fire that killed two firefighters in a wall collapse in April.

The union has maintained that a "collapse zone" was never established around the building. If one had been set up - preventing firefighters from entering an area one and a half times the height of the building's walls - then Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Daniel Sweeney would not have been killed, the union has said.

The union said Tuesday that the recordings and reports are necessary to investigate a possible greivance. The city has not responded to a request for the material made six weeks ago, the union said.

"They continue to stonewall us and we’re no longer willing to play their childish games," said Local 22 President Bill Gault. "Clearly, the Nutter administration has something to hide, or they would have turned over the information weeks ago."

District Attorney Seth Williams also said in the wake of the fire that he would impanel a grand jury to investigate the circumstances surrounding the fire, and it's likely the requested evidence would be part of the grand jury proceedings.

The unfair labor practice charge would be heard before the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.

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Comments (1)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:15 AM, 09/05/2012

Sad thing about all this is the higher brass who are out of touch with current and federal fire fighting tactics.
At large fires, Deputy Commissioners show up and either pass the back onto a lower ranking commissioner or take charge and issue conflicting orders to different companies on the scene.
Since the lower supervisors know that they'll be in hot water if they even question the orders, things usually get out of hand.

— phillysgr8