Hillsborough County firefighters just agreed to a new three-year contract, and part of that deal also calls for new random drug testing. For years, Hillsborough firefighters knew when it was coming. Every six months, there was a round of hundreds of drug tests that a small handful would likely prepare for by laying off drugs or alcohol long enough to pass the test.
- PUB DATE: 11/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTSP-TV 10 News

Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration is moving forward with plans for hundreds of layoffs following last week’s voter approval of Prop B despite questions about whether jobs could be saved through renewed negotiations with the city’s firefighters union. The pay parity referendum, which passed decisively after a bitter campaign that pitted Turner and the city’s police union against Houston firefighters, adds an estimated $100 million a year to the $500 million annual budget of the Houston Fire Department to bring firefighter salaries in line with those paid to police of corresponding rank and seniority.
- PUB DATE: 11/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

Fairfield City Council rejected a fact finder’s recommendation on proposed wage increases for two years of the firefighter union’s three-year contract. The fact finder suggested the city pay members of the International Association of Firefighters Local 4010 a 2.5 percent increase in 2018 (retroactive to April 1) and 2019.
- PUB DATE: 11/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Hamilton Journal-News

A family of eight was forced from their home Monday after it was destroyed by flames, officials with Clark County Fire Dist. 6 said. No one was hurt in the fire at a house on NE 100th Circle. The Red Cross Cascades Region has been called out to help the three adults, five children, and four pets who were displaced in the fire.
- PUB DATE: 11/14/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KATU

Joseph C. Coleman got a call from God on November 8, 2018, wanting to know if he would be interested in joining the brotherhood of firefighters in heaven to keep the campfires going and safe. Joe joined the Mountlake Terrace police department in July, 1964 and worked as a volunteer fire fighter until a lateral transfer to the fire department in 1967, where he was Mountlake Terrace's first paid firefighter.
- PUB DATE: 11/13/2018 6:25:14 PM - SOURCE: Everett Herald