A judge is to decide Monday whether to grant the firefighters union an injunction keeping the city from cutting manpower at some engine companies. The city wants to cut the size of 53 crews from five to four firefighters to save some $12 million.
The contract with the Uniformed Firefighters Association lets the city cut staff when the sick-leave rate exceeds 7.5 percent. The rate now is 8.6 percent.
But the union argues the number on sick leave shouldn't include hundreds of firefighters who became seriously ill working at Ground Zero without proper respiratory equipment.
Union lawyers yesterday told Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice James Starkey the city should not be able to cash in on the high sick-leave rate that it allegedly caused by failing to provide firefighters with the same respiratory equipment cops had.
The city denied the charge, but argued the cause of the sick-leave rate is irrelevant.
Union lawyer Bob Sullivan told the judge, "You can't send police down to the pit saying,
