The three-year contract recently approved by the city of Akron fire union sets a new and welcome direction for how firefighters will be promoted. Gone will be the use of promotional testing, the source here and elsewhere of long, contentious legal challenges. Instead, the city and its firefighters have agreed to a new system, based on seniority and the satisfactory completion of firefighting courses following national standards.
Grades still will matter, but just to a point. Those seeking to move up will need to get passing marks on specific courses, the work load increasing with rank. Getting on the promotional list also will depend on time spent in each rank. The combining of experience and coursework will result in a list from which the fire chief will choose from the top applicants.
The contract language follows the settlement of a bitter, decade-long federal lawsuit over promotional tests given by the city in 2004. The legal settlement and new contract language bring to an end disputes that left the top ranks of the fire department badly depleted.
The new process is expected to take effect next spring, after existing promotional lists are exhausted. (Those lists actually face a challenge stemming from bonus points for veterans and city residents.) Specific courses required to be considered for promotion under the new regime will be reviewed annually by the city and the union.
The approach has been successful in Atlanta, the first to use it, and in Alexandria and Arlington, Va. City officials say Akron is the first city in Ohio to use a promotional system based on seniority and academic achievement.
Besides reducing the potential for legal challenges, the new system offers firefighters a clearer picture of how to advance their careers. The new system will eliminate skipping up a rank based on temporary assignments. To get on the promotional list, a firefighter must be fully qualified in his or her current rank. The net effect will be creation of a level playing field.
The new contract also should work to advance more African-American firefighters through the ranks. City officials looked at what might have happened if the new system had been in place and found more black firefighters would have landed on the promotional list.
The other big advantage is that the new contract language gradually will result in a better educated department, those seeking to move ahead taking courses in basic firefighting, then proceeding to courses that deal with supervision.
It took two years for the city administration and the firefighters union to arrive at a new method for promotions in the department. Now that the details have emerged, it is evident the time was well spent. While it took way too long to get there, the city and its firefighters now are in a position to put the past behind and move ahead to a better department.