Thanks to the Hotshot Wakeup for covering this on his Substack. So far the link to the agreement itself doesn’t work. Here’s a link to the Chief’s statement.
However, if you want to be transparent and truthful about it… it’s a massive win. It adds a 25% pay bump for Prescribed fire operations, which will only become more frequent. Here is the full verbiage on the prescribed fire hazard pay:
Prescribed Burns:
1. The Agency’s National Prescribed Fire Review in 2022 found firefighting activities associated with prescribed burns now qualify as inherently hazardous activities because changing conditions, exacerbated by climate change, have created hazards that may not be practically eliminated in a timely manner. Consistent with the Review’s recommendation, the Parties agree employees performing firefighting activities on prescribed burns will receive hazard pay for this work.
It must be noted that this change needs to be approved by the Office Of Personnel Management.
NOTE: This provision will not become effective until (i) the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) publishes a final rule authorizing hazard pay for prescribed burns; (ii) OPM publishes implementing guidance; and (iii) the Parties fulfill any resultant bargaining obligations. Employees will not receive retroactive hazard pay for work on prescribed burns that occurred before the effective date of this provision.
Other important changes were also made in housing, safety, promotions, and employee rights, but this is by far the most significant. The Forest Service and the National Federation of Federal Employees released a joint statement on the new agreement.
From Tim,
So, how was it justified that these operations are suddenly hazardous? Probably due to all the injuries and fatalities over the years…? I found they did it in a rather brilliant and interesting way.
They justified the Hazard Pay, saying Rx burns are now hazardous “due to changing conditions exacerbated by climate change.”
They did not say prescribed burns are hazardous due to everything that’s killed wildland firefighters over the last decades, including falling snags, rocks, UTV rollovers, burn-overs, heart attacks, driving accidents, chainsaw operations, and aviation crashes.
But I get it. They are admitting prescribed fire is NOW hazardous without admitting it was ALWAYS hazardous. The lawyers probably helped with that one.
I guess I’m less picky than Tim, I’m just glad they said “exacerbated by” and not “caused by.” Because I don’t think it helps the decarbonization cause to blame everything bad on climate change. It makes it seem like climate change is just another opportunity for grift and evading responsibility. Being honest may hurt in the short run, but help in the long run.
The Forest Service has always had a policy of ignoring laws regarding Federal pay laws.
I transferred from the NPS to the FS in 1978.
I went to work for the NPS, after two years in private industry and as such I was really not familiar with Federal pay laws.
I got chewed out by the NPS for violating the law by submitting generic time sheets, which meant we did not get Sunday differential or hazard pay for flying in small airplanes or operating boats by ourselves. At that point, I decided to read the Federal pay regulations.
After I transferred to the Forest Service, the SO Administrative Officer asked me to violate the Fair Labor Standards Act, by donating overtime as a GS/7. I got chewed out by the NPS as a GS/9 for that generic time sheet for a GS/7.
The capper was the FS did not pay for my transfer of station. They never mentioned it, until a couple of years later when a audit of FS transfer of payments discovered that I should have been paid for transfer of station. The only justice was that by that time I had transferred to BLM and it was a nice “bonus”.
I also missed out on pay retention by one day. The FS was correct in not retaining my pay. It did not make me feel real good about the agency, however.
Human Resources in the Forest Service was a complete disaster.
I guess it came from a thought to save taxpayers dollars, which I can appreciate. BUT taking money from lower paid employees that they legally had coming, doesn’t work well.
Really my ONLY complaints with the Forest Service were related to HR and there were LOTS of them.
Later in my career, when I found out the flexibility the agency had in payments to employees it made me even madder since it was skewed towards helping the “upper GS levels”.
Not a fan of Jack Ward Thomas, but he really should have directed his comments about “follow the law” to the HR department of the Forest Service.