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San Antonio firefighters get 20% raise over three years in tentative union contract

Negotiators for the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association and the City of San Antonio on Friday night.
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YouTube.com/COSAGOV
Negotiators for the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association and the City of San Antonio on Friday night.

The City of San Antonio reached a tentative agreement on a $109.6 million labor contract with the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association ON Friday night after more than 12 hours of negotiations.

The contract, which still needs to be ratified by union members and then approved by the San Antonio City Council, includes raises of 20% over three years for firefighters.

That raise will be doled out as a 7% raise in 2025, 8% in 2026, and 5% in 2027. Also, $2,400 in incentive and uniform pay will be transferred over to base pay in the first year of the contract before the percent raise is implemented.

By the end of the three-year contract, the lowest paid firefighters — Step A on the pay scale — will make $72,774.

Under the tentative agreement, those firefighters will make $64,174 starting on Oct. 1.

Step A firefighters make $57,576 under the current contract.

Friday’s tentative agreement came after six months of negotiations, and it was the first time the fire union and city came to a tentative agreement since 2009. A bitter contract fight after that 2009 agreement expired ended in an arbitrator-imposed contract that left firefighter wages stagnant.

A six-year stalemate between the City of San Antonio and San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association is over. A collective bargaining agreement over…

Joe Jones, the fire union president, remarked on the terms of the tentative agreement after it was reached on Friday night.

“Is it perfect? It’s not perfect,” Jones said. “It’s never perfect. That’s part of collaboration — that’s part of compromise.”

But he said the union and city had ultimately succeeded in the negotiations.

“People said it couldn’t be done,” Jones said. “A lot of people on our side said it couldn’t be done. They said that due to historical distrust and differences that we wouldn’t be able to work together and collaborate in an effective way, and once again we have proven them wrong.”

The fire union entered the negotiations with a request for nearly 34% in raises over three years, while the city offered 20% over five years in its opening offer.

The tentative agreement also included concessions from the city on promotions and sick leave policies, issues the fire union held out on even as negotiations on Friday went past midnight.

Deputy City Manager Maria Villagomez said the city achieved what it set out for.

“We think this is a good contract for our firefighters and our paramedics. [It] keeps us competitive with other cities in Texas, which was the goal of the city, so we are thankful for that,” she said.

Members of the city council pressured city staff in recent months to give firefighters the raises they deserved, even as they faced a tight budget.

The city budget proposed to council earlier this month for the 2025 fiscal year included the 7% raise the city stuck to for the first year of the fire union contract, meaning no additional cuts will need to be made to accommodate the tentative agreement.

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