Los Angeles County Responders Demand Raises after Battling Historic Wildfires

On the heels of the catastrophic January wildfires, L.A. County first responders are demanding raises and rebuking politicians for not moving faster to grant them.

Unions representing sheriff's deputies, firefighters and lifeguards made a public pitch Thursday for more support in increasingly testy contract negotiations, releasing a half-hour documentary that highlighted their members' harrowing tales from the first days of the fires.

Dave Gillotte, head of county firefighter union IAFF Local 1014, said he wants the footage to serve as a reminder to county politicians about his members' heroism battling the worst wildfire of their careers.

"They're a little bit bewildered seeing press conferences from the county saying what an amazing job you've done," said Gillotte, whose union's contract with the county expired a week before the fires. "That doesn't reconcile with my members."

The documentary captures a sheriff's deputy reminiscing about her car slowing in the middle of an inferno as her tires melted. A lifeguard narrates footage from his body camera of driving through black smoke during a beach patrol and spotting the beam from a flashlight — a Hail Mary from a man whose house was about to be consumed by flames. Firefighters share stories of working double shifts without food or sleep.

"My members don't whine. They don't complain," Gillotte said. "But they did a damn good job."

The film's release comes about a month after L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport told the unions they would get no raises in their new contracts because of unprecedented financial pressures. The county is saddled with a $4-billion sex abuse settlement, an estimated $2 billion in wildfire costs and signs from the White House that hundreds of millions' worth of public health grants will soon be cut.

The chief executive office said in a statement that the county is trying to balance the need to pay employees fairly with keeping the county solvent.

" Los Angeles County appreciates the essential contributions of our workforce, and we are deeply grateful for the brave and important work by our firefighters and other first responders during the unprecedented January wildfires," the statement read. "At the same time, the County is facing serious budgetary challenges on multiple fronts."

Despite the punishing headwinds, the county balanced its $48-billion recommended budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which officials credit to cautious financial planning. They said the sex abuse settlement can be paid with bonds and the county's plush rainy day fund, a seldom-touched pot worth nearly a billion dollars.

Unlike L.A. County, the city of Los Angeles recently gave its workers significant pay raises, which are now a major factor in a nearly $1-billion budget deficit, along with ballooning legal payouts and a weakening national economy.

Mayor Karen Bass' proposed budget includes 1,650 layoffs, a quarter of them civilians at the Police Department. City labor negotiators have started to talk to union leaders about postponing this year's raises, which are expected to cost about $250 million.

County unions insist there's some room left over for raises. SEIU Local 721, which represents about 55,000 county employees, has accused the county of slow-rolling negotiations and plans to strike at the end of the month.

Unions representing first responders said the county's refusal to grant raises landed with a particularly brutal thud among employees who expect to be rewarded for their work in the wildfires.

"I'm pissed off, bluntly," said Richard Pippin, head of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, whose contract expired at the end of January. "Because the county fiscally is so much healthier than the city is — even with the settlement. We know that they have the budget."

None of the five L.A. County supervisors responded to a request for comment.

Sheriff Robert Luna, who greenlighted the use of deputy footage in the documentary, said he has been advocating to Davenport and the supervisors to increase the pay of his deputies, warning they will otherwise leave for better-paying jurisdictions.

"They absolutely need to be fairly compensated," Luna said. "We can't move forward and continue to get zeroes."

In L.A., the union that represents rank-and-file police officers has said it will back Bass for reelection after supporting her opponent, Rick Caruso, a billionaire developer, the last time.

Asked whether they were threatening political repercussions for the supervisors, county unions demurred.

"We just need the CEO to show up," Gillotte said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.