Over two years after the Portsmouth City Council approved collective bargaining for city employees, a lieutenant paramedic stood in front of the council.
“Show as a vote on the record, and finish what you started,” Tiffany Stuart, president of the Portsmouth Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Union, said at the council’s July 14 meeting. “Our members answer emergency calls every day in the heat, the rain and the shine.”
Despite approving city employees’ ability to collectively bargain in November 2023, Portsmouth has yet to pass a formal collective bargaining ordinance, meaning workers still can’t formally start the process to bargain over their salaries, working conditions and more. Stuart’s request for a regulated, structured way to collaborate with the city stemmed from long-standing concerns about the fire and emergency services department’s staffing and safety.
Industry standards recommend that fire trucks operate with a minimum of four crew members. But Stuart said Portsmouth’s are regularly staffed with three people.
The four-person crew is essential to federal standards that permit two firefighters inside a dangerous area at a time while two more monitor the situation outside and call for backup. When there are three to a truck, one person is left alone.
In 2024, the Portsmouth fire department was cited by the state’s Occupational Safety and Health program after employees were harmed while they were fighting a residential fire. Both responding trucks were staffed with three firefighters.
The violation said no command was maintained, and one crew was sent in to fight the fire while another was sent in to search the home, with no employees stationed outside.
“It caused five of our guys to get hurt. They had to bail out of the building,” Stuart said. “And because there were not enough people on scene immediately.”
Following the investigation, Stuart said the union and administration tried to find a solution and send surplus staff to single-engine stations. The long-term remedy would be to increase staffing, Stuart said, but Portsmouth’s budget for the next fiscal year did not include the 11 additional positions its fire chief requested.
Stuart said there have been issues with understaffing since she joined the department a decade ago.
She said employees are often told to stay for an extra 12 hours after their regular 24-hour shifts if there aren’t enough firefighters to come in. Staff work 53 hours a week before they are allowed to earn time and a half, Stuart said.
“We’ve had people that had to miss their kids’ birthdays because they couldn’t go home, or miss their softball tournament,” Stuart said.
She said the extra hours can hurt morale and increase medical errors or traffic accidents.
There are problems beyond staffing the union wishes it could address through collective bargaining.
“We have a fire truck where there is a hammer holding up one of the seats,” Stuart said. “Because, our apparatuses — we literally are stealing pieces from our ambulances to fix our other ambulances, just to keep our fleet in line.”
Councilmember Vernon Tillage requested that the city manager conduct a feasibility study of adding a fourth shift at the meeting, which would move firefighters to a 42-hour work week. Vice Mayor William Moody asked the city manager how the council could further comply with occupational safety rules after the citation.
Stuart said her ultimate goal would be to have the city council bring and pass a collective bargaining ordinance to address problems collaboratively. She requested at the meeting that the council put an ordinance on the agenda within 60 days.
“So that ultimately, the citizens of this city get the best service delivery that we can give them,” Stuart said. “With fresh providers, with good trucks that aren’t breaking down, fully stocked with medical equipment, and with enough people to put your house fire out.”
She said she’s glad the council seems to be heeding her warnings now, but she wishes it had been solved in the budget process.
Now, she said it feels a day late and a dollar short.