The city of McAllen and the McAllen Fire Fighters’ Association signed a collective bargaining agreement this week which set new terms for the next four years.
During a signing ceremony on Thursday, city leaders and representatives of the McAllen FFA, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2602, celebrated the new collective bargaining agreement which will go into effect on Oct. 1, the day after the current agreement expires.
The newly approved collective bargaining agreement, which will be in effect through Sept. 20, 2025, included changes for how many certifications firefighters would be eligible to receive premium pay, according to Robert Lock, president of the union.
Previously, union members were only eligible to receive premium pay for up to five different certifications but the new agreement bumped that up to six.
The city also agreed to pay education fees for the members.
“The state of Texas offers firefighters or first responders free college and the local college STC, they still have fees to go to school,” Lock said, “and so the city agreed to cover those fees.”
Going into the negotiations, the union’s main priority was salary, Lock said, because of the increased cost of living and so the union was able to secure an approximately 12.5% increase in pay, spread across four years.
Lock said the union raised the issue of starting salaries for entry-level firefighters even though they are not covered in the collective bargaining agreements.
“I want to say our current firefighters make $32,000, entry-level, and the other cities like Edinburg and Mission start off at 37,000 so we spoke about that,” Lock said. “Like I said, the entry-level firefighters are not a part of our collective bargaining agreement but we just brought it up and they were really interested to hear about that and they said they will make some adjustments.”
For the city management, the process is about making sure they’re on par with other cities.
“We know we have a great department and we also know we have great personnel and so it’s about making sure, for us, that we’re keeping up with the market,” said City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez. “That dictates, really, the negotiation … what are other cities of similar size or, in our case, what are other cities in the Valley doing with pay compensation, leave and those kinds of benefits?”
“And so we want to make sure — as management and the city commission — that we’re at the top of that because we feel that McAllen should be,” Rodriguez said. “So that’s the way we treat that.”
Rodriguez said the agreement consists of about 37 articles that each deals with a separate issue.
In addition to compensation, he said there were issues such as education benefits, education pay, shift pay, equipment, leave, sick leave, and vacation.
“All of that stuff is in the contract and so every time that there’s a negotiation, obviously the union wants to improve their position and that’s understandable and so it’s a several-week process to complete,” Rodriguez said, “but I would say that it was a very cordial one, a respectful one and very professional and I’m really proud of our firefighters.”
Lock said there were some things that the union and the city weren’t able to reach an agreement on such as changes to the longevity pay but the agreement still received overwhelming support among the union members.
Of the entire union membership, 99.16% voted in favor of the agreement while 0.84% voted against it which represents 118 members who voted for it and one who voted against it, according to Lock.
In statement announcing the approval of the agreement, Mayor Javier Villalobos highlighted the importance of their firefighters within the community and thanked the members of the bargaining team.
“Our firefighters are very important to the McAllen City Commission,” Villalobos said. “They put their lives on the line protecting everyone who lives, shops, works or visits McAllen.”
He added, “It is important to invest in our first responders, not just with compensation, but in equipment, resources, training, and anything that helps make their job of protecting us better and easier.”
