CT City's Firefighters Win Union Dispute

NEW HAVEN, CT -- A Connecticut Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of a local firefighters union saying it effectively disaffiliated in 2016 from the Uniformed Professional Firefighters Association of Connecticut.

The city firefighters’ union, Local 825, filed a four-count lawsuit in March alleging a breach of fiduciary duty against the UPFFA, which represents the state’s fire departments.

In the lawsuit, the New Haven union, which is affiliated with the International Association of Fire Fighters, said its executive board had voted to end its “legislative only” membership with UPFFA on Jan. 4, 2016.

UPFFA has argued that Local 825 did not properly disaffiliate with the state union and remained a member so UPFFA continued to collect membership dues from 2016 to present. UPFFA said since the local union didn’t send its notice by certified mail and didn’t allow all members to vote, the disaffiliation was not official, even though UPFFA was aware of emails and meetings held on the matter. Local 825 bylaws don’t require all members to vote to leave, just the executive board.

The judge ruled dues would only be owed for the following fiscal year in which the disaffiliation notice was given. Since Local 825 gave notice in January, dues would be owed for the calendar year of 2016, since it aligns with the union’s fiscal year. But any membership dues past that could not be collected by UPFFA, according to the judge’s decision.

As part of granting a temporary injunction motion Monday, the judge brought to an end a years-long struggle by Local 825 to “win their freedom from UPFFA,” according to a release from The Fairness Center, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to those hurt by public sector union officials.

“New Haven Fire Fighters achieved the truest vindication by the court ruling that we are disaffiliated and that the UPFFA must honor our choice,” Local 825 President Frank Ricci said. “In our colonial spirt, being from New Haven, Local 825 will not surrender to state union bureaucrats.”

The temporary injunction blocks UPFFA from moving forward with charges it filed against the principal officers of New Haven Fire Fighters in an attempt to remove them from office and allows the case to move forward on Local 825’s breach of fiduciary duty allegation against UPFFA. Local 825 has alleged that UPFFA has misused Local 825’s legislative-only dues.

Local 825 is seeking restitution of about $96,000 in dues it says were misappropriated. In the course of the lawsuit, “the court has heard evidence from the local of questionable expenditures from the state union, including personal travel that may not have been reimbursed, suspicious ‘mistakes’ with PAC fund balances, and admission of a plainly improper loan the state union took (and repaid) from its chartitable affiliate,” the decision said.

“The union will probably be able to prove some of its claim that its dues were misused but the court has insufficient evidence at this time to justify any order offsetting the dues likely owed for 2016 or requiring any money from the state union be put aside or given to the local,” the decision said.

As the lawsuit moves forward, UPFFA’s handling and expenditure of its finances will be closely examined, the release said.

“I believe the UPFFA attempted to circumvent the court with frivolous charges in an effort to remove the leadership of New Haven Fire Fighters and hide their actions from public scrutiny,” Ricci said.

The UPFFA has not returned a request seeking comment.

“Injunction motions of this nature are notoriously difficult to win,” said Nathan McGrath, the Fairness Center’s vice president and director of litigation and attorney for Local 825, in the release. “The core of this case was Local 825’s right to disaffiliate from UPFFA, which has now been decided in our client’s favor. We look forward to the next stage of this litigation and having the opportunity to prove that our client’s money was misused by UPFFA, so our client can be made whole.”

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