Grassroots Wildland Firefighters & National Federation Of Federal Employees Infrastructure Bill Discussion
Today - June 21st, 2021: The entire federal wildland firefighting workforce FINALLY got some good news about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the pay raise that comes along with it.
That's why we have two of the major players in the game on the show to discuss all of the pertinent information and how it affects the "boots on the ground."
Special thank you to the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, the nonprofit, and the National Federation of Federal Employees for your dedication and resolve in getting this implemented correctly! This monumental legislation couldn't have been possible without you two, especially every wildland firefighter that supported or believed in the cause.
If you want to find out more about the pay supplement, check out this handy link:
FAQ for the pay supplement https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/interagency-faqs.pdf
At the end of the day, always remember: "A person can only move so many shovel-fulls of dirt a day. But, thousands of people can move mountains."
Stay safe. Stay savage.
Enjoy!
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Grassroots Wildland Firefighters & National Federation Of Federal Employees Infrastructure Bill Discussion
We have a special announcement. I'm sure you're all aware that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the new classification for the 0456 series, wildland firefighters was announced. It's official. You're getting a pay raise and you are officially wildland firefighters. Without further ado, I'd like to have an episode to talk about this whole rigamarole that's going on on Capitol Hill.
This episode is going to be brought to you by none other than, you, everybody who believed in Grassroots or NFFE's cause, supported their legislation, or spread the word. This episode is brought to you by all of those folks who were involved with both of these organizations. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce two of my very good friends and friends of yours, looking out for your best interests. We've got the NFFE and the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. Welcome to the show.
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I'd like to introduce the leadership from the NFFE and leadership from the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. We're going to be talking about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. This is a gathering to freeform talk about everything. What are the updates? Everybody's been looking for this for a long time. Take it away.
I'm Max Alonzo. I am a business rep for the National Federation of Federal Employees. I spent my entire career in the Forest Service in Region 3. Some of the people out there might know me. Some might not, but this has been something that we've been working on for years. We've been pushing for a lot of different wildland issues. To see this happen is huge. It's historic. There's a lot happening on the ground here in DC. We're out here with quite a few wildland firefighters from around the country from the US Forest Service. Right here is Steve Lenkart, our Legislative Director and Chief of Staff.
My name is Mark Munoz. I'm an engine captain on the San Bernardino National Forest and the Local 1650 President, which encompasses the Sequoia National Forest, Los Padres, and the San Bernardino. Over decades, with the agency Big Bear Official Hotshots. I have seen the struggle before I even came in while I've been here. You better believe that we're pushing. We're setting it real for all the folks, letting you know, letting them know what's going on and what we've been struggling with and going through.
I’m Warner Vanderheuel. I go by Andy. I'm the General Vice President of the Forest Service Council and engine captain. Mark and I have been seeing each other for many years, but we spent some time together with the apprenticeship program years ago, doing stuff fast.
I’m Steve Gutierrez, an engineer at Angeles National Forest and Secretary-Treasurer for Local 1650, which also represents the Angeles, San Bernardino, the LP, as well as Sequoia. Here to share your voice with members of the Congress and we got this great bit of news.
I'm Steve Lenkart. I'm the Executive Director of NFFE, never a wildland firefighter. I was many years as a city firefighter outside of Chicago. As all of you guys know, city firemen think you guys are crazy for going in the forest, and you guys think we're crazy for going into burning buildings, but there's a healthy mutual respect for each other as a profession. It's an honor for me to represent Wildland Firefighters up here. We've made some good gains over the past years and we have some more victories. I don't want to overpromise, but I think we're going to have a good year.
My name is Luke Mayfield. I'm the Vice President of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. I spent many years with the United States Forest Service. My last years were spent on the United States Interagency Hotshot Crews. I resigned in 2019 for a plantable and livable income and then the ulterior motive of taking part and standing up for what has become the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters in providing a unified voice and movement to see work workforce reforms to positively affect pay classification, comprehensive health and wellbeing and Federal employees’ ability to maintain their sanity, home lives, and the ability to operate at a high level while in the field.
Everybody, thank you for joining the show. I appreciate it. Big news. It has been a fight, a struggle, and total pain for November 2021, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed. People were getting frustrated and there's been much commotion, stalling, and the perception of poor service and DOI leadership is that they're beating around the bush with whatever's going on. This is finally the day that they've announced something that's concrete and they put it out to the world.
It's important that we recognize both Grassroots and NFFE’s efforts on Capitol Hill because I don't think it would've gotten done with this unified voice. You guys are the union side of the house, and with Grassroots, we are the advocacy side of the house. We're all having one thing in common. There are a lot of supporters behind us. With that being said, what are some of the major pertinent with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the announcement of the pay?
One thing that's interesting about the bill itself is the language that was in the original bill with the infrastructure bill. The language had to get through in a way that wasn't going to trigger certain roadblocks in Congress. Some of those roadblocks are, if there's a cost associated with the bill, the bill will default to the Congressional Budget Office or CBO. From there, a study will take place. How much will this cost? How much is the increase from mandatory spending to discretionary spending in Congress? When you get turned to CBO, it has a way of killing bills quickly. The language that was chosen was intentionally opaque in the sense that it didn't include a mandate.
The language of the infrastructure bill had to get through in a way that would not trigger roadblocks in Congress.
If you notice the language and the bill said, “We are authorizing the government to pay not simply to pay people more, but for retention and recruitment purposes based on geographic need. It has to be agreed upon by the secretary of whatever department and also the OPM director.” That is a lot of stipulation that has to go into a piece of legislation.
Upon implementation, anything can go wrong there. First of all, they can decide that a geographic area is very small or simply doesn't exist. You can simply have a cabinet secretary disagree with the OPM director or vice versa and then you have no agreement on that. It could be for a number of other reasons because there's no mandate associated with the language and the bill.
They did that intentionally because if you don't mandate it, you can get it by CBO. You won't get rerouted or get an extra hurdle, but when you do that, maybe you're not going to get that bill in or the bill implemented correctly at all, because many people have to come together and agree on the same thing and so forth.
From very early on, once the bill was passed, the first thing Grassroots and NFFE did was to send the message, “It's a national workforce. People are hired. It doesn't matter where you're hired from or you're going to get deployed all over the US. Think of wildland firefighters as a national workforce. Don't think of it as a geological constraint that, “We have trouble hiring people in one state and not another.”
It doesn't mean that we don't have a problem in that one area. You have a problem everywhere. It's a national workforce. The national workforce works together. It gets moved all around the country. First of all, the geographic area thing, while it was necessary for this to evade a CBO score, was absolutely irrelevant to us at the Grassroots. We didn't want that to be a tipping point for who gets something and who doesn't.
The other thing is we needed the OPM director and the secretaries of the cabinets to also agree that this is something that's needed. There's no guarantee that's going to happen. In this particular administration, NFFE and Grassroots started working with the administration early on saying, “Wildland firefighting has been a problem for years. The crisis is getting worse every year. This is the time to do something about this because we are in crisis mode.”
The administration caught onto that. President Biden initially did an executive order offering people at least up to $15 an hour, which was a great start. It was the best he could do at that time politically, and get away with it, but then from then, we went on to say that a lot more needs to be done. We started lobbying the executive branch and the White House right away saying, “It has to be a national workforce. It has to be extremely inclusive of people that are not only primarily firefighters, but also people that are secondary.”
It's not only people in the fire line but there are people behind the scenes heavy equipment operators, logistics people, emergency communications, people who are all deployed into the same areas and breathing in the same smoke as anybody else because they're a little bit behind the fire lines doesn't make any difference.
We were excited to hear a lot of those thoughts and pleas. We are honored. As far as we can tell, they know the devil’s in the details. The USDA, DOI, and OPM agreed that it is going to be a national issue. It's not going to be constrained by geographic area. They are widening it to as many people many positions, and different occupational series as possible.
We were very specific that you need to include seasonal attempts because everyone's in the same boat. We're optimistic that this is the case. They said so. With any bill that's passed out of Congress, it all comes down to implementation. I always tell people, “A third of your mission is to get something passed through Congress as hard as that is. Two-thirds is implementation because everything can go wrong after the bill is passed out of Congress.”
Those are unforeseen consequences.
Anything can go wrong. Let's face it. Whether your political loyalties lie, if this was a few years ago, no raises would've happened. They would've come up with some excuse. The OPM director would've disagreed with the cabinet and so forth. You would've gotten zero even if you got the same bill passed. In this particular administration, they are favorable to while on fires, but still, we have to go up there, talk to the administration, and say, “Why this is extremely urgent? It's not good enough to pass a bill.”
We have to tell them that people are suffering. They need this now. It's not just a loss of our talent and expertise and a failure to attract new talent. It's the people who are continuing to stay on the job. They and their families are, are suffering. If you're on the job for 8 or 10 years and you're still making $20 an hour, that is miserable compared to the jobs that they do or they’ve ever seen in their lives. Just because it was passed and supported, everyone thinks it's a great idea. It's good for America. None of those things matter. It comes down to implementation, forcing people to step up to the plate and get things done.
That's what we did and what we're very excited about. Again, the devil’s in the details. We're getting a brief and that goes into more details, but from what we've seen, we're happy about this. It is a huge hurdle that we crossed over with the asterisk that if we have to further define things or if there's a group of people that's been left out, we'll go after them as well too. By all means, everybody should feel that it was a pretty great day. We'll see where the least amount comes from. We're not telling it. We have legislation on the hill and other things that we're going to do. This is a Band-Aid on the issue and the problem, getting money into people's pockets who are out there on the fire line and behind the fire line.
We're not done. We've been working for a long time in Congress. We have a lot of stuff ready to go. It was very hard to get Congress to move legislatively before the executive branch came out, but the occupational series information and without the information, because it's hard to make the law in the legislative branch without knowing what the executive branch is doing. We're at that point now where everyone is showing their cards. They're all up on the table. From here now we can start to patch some of those gaps that we know exist but we know what we're dealing with.
To add on to that, that's where Grassroots Wildland Firefighters is going to come in for making well assisting in making those changes permanently. This is a Band-Aid solution to an arterial bleed. However, Tim's Act is going to be one of those things that are going to hopefully get the tourniquet on it and get them to definitive care. There's also a big bill to chew on. Luke, do you want to explain Tim’s Act, its importance, and its relevance to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill?
First and foremost, you pointed out that everything that NFFE and Grassroots have done as force multipliers in conjunction with each other, whether coordinated or not. This has been the conversation on the fire line for over 30 years with the original founding members, the R5 Hot Shots that stood up, and the FWFSA in the late ‘80s and carried that conversation on through the ‘90s, only to see it reignited and become unified effort and voice to see the change that we're seeing. It is historic. This is many years of people's blood, sweat, and tears. A lot of folks owe a debt of gratitude to those original twelve R5 Hotshots that started this conversation.
As far as budget and infrastructure and how Tim's Act worked together, Tim's Act is the permanent solution and what right looks like. Is it what it's going to look like in the Senate? Who knows? There's a good chance that the portions of Tim's Act become broken up on the Senate side, and are able to act a little bit like Voltron at the end of the day, where they come back together and are very similar to the House version of what you see now in Tim's Act as a standalone bill, but on the Senate side.
It might be difficult. It might be broken up and be able to put it back together once that stuff comes through. Honestly, more force multiplication there with different senators picking up a different portion of Tim’s Act to ensure that we have bipartisan support and the permanent solutions that the workforce needs because everybody knows budget and infrastructure are temporary. Coming up with the permanent solutions and what that permanent looks like and how you can make it to where you can expand or contract on that depending on change in time. That's my take on the correlation of budget infrastructure. Tim's Act on the House side now is standalone and what it becomes later on in the Senate.
Tim's Act is a very large piece of legislation. These little wins that we're seeing from both the collaboration between Grassroots and NFFE are small little wins. They're important to the overall bigger picture because it's like climbing Everest. There are several base camps. You don't summit that thing in a day.
This is huge. I agree, but this is more than a small win. This is a historic day for Wildland Firefighters. The next step, people have talked about if the Biden bonuses were the tourniquet budget and infrastructure, the classification is huge, supplemental pay, if that's the transport to the next level of care, then whether it's Tim's Act or versions of Tim's Act if that's the full recovery and release from the hospital and that's the work that remains, it's a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of voices at the table, NFFE, Grassroots, and whoever wants to stand up and see change happen.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Act: It will take a lot of voices at the table to see change happen.
This is a historic day, but there is a lot of work to be done. The devil's in the details. Is it going to be perfect right now? No. Is it going to be perfect tomorrow? Even hearing from folks at the Washington office and others, there's room to make it right. If it's not interpreted the way it should be, there's room to make sure it is interpreted that way.
I want to introduce Randy Erwin, our national president here. He's been super supportive for years of wildland firefighters. Even when I was still with the Forest Service and before I got this job, he was the guy to go to if he needed something done.
Congratulations to everybody. What a historic day. We're very happy. This has been decades in the making. There's a lot of credit to go around. I want to say thank you and congratulations to everybody on this. If you're on this show, you're a wildland firefighter or closely associated with one, it was not easy. It was a labor of love by a lot of people. I'm proud of the way that wildland firefighters have stepped up and commanded the power that they need and deserve.
Wildland firefighters have stepped up and commanded the power that they need, that they deserve.
I stepped in and heard some of the commentary, but this is the tip of the iceberg. This is life-changing for wildland firefighters. We're very clearly saying, “Wildland firefighters are going to be respected and they were given what they deserve and earned,” which has not happened in a very long time. Everybody should be proud of that. This is a definitive moment that is going to change Federal wildland firefighting in this country forever.
With that said, there's a long way to go. We're not done. We got a few years where wildland firefighters are going to be paid what they deserve, and then the funding runs out. That's great because it hadn't been done. You got to break new ground before you kind of move forward, but there's a lot of work to do. We got to get the job series right. We are holding the administration's feet to the fire like you would not believe. We are not going to let them get that wrong. We need to have a job series that reflects the work that's being done out there. We're going to get that right.
You can't make guarantees, but from the feedback we've gotten far, I was optimistic about the news coming out that came out and about the job series going forward. The real fight is beyond that. We're going to be good for the next few years, but beyond that, we could be back in the same boat that we are right now because we don't have any funding beyond that.
That's a heavy lift. Anytime that you're asking Congress to spend some money, they'd rather go to some other priority. There's nobody other than us, wildland firefighters, and the organizations, NFFE and Grassroots. If we're not going to fight for ourselves, there's nobody that's going to fight for us. We got a few years where things are going to be pretty good, finally getting the respect that we deserve, but beyond that, there are no guarantees whatsoever. I want to see long-term change. I don't want to see two years and then go back to the same crap.
If we do not fight for ourselves, nobody will fight for us.
Two years is not going to cut it. We're already having this huge mass exodus. On my last show with Bre Orcasitas, we're talking about the mass exodus and that conversation is revolving around pay. If you give something this pay increase, the 20% or 50%, $20,000 cap, and you take that away, people are going to be leaving in droves. That's one thing that Grassroots also highlighted. We've seen it all. It's no big secret. It'd be political suicide if they take that away from whoever was in the administration at that time.
That's a point that we made with the administration because it applies as well. It shouldn't have to come down to threats. It comes down to building our power so that nobody would ever consider messing with wildland firefighters the way that they have abused, temp abused, let pay, run away, and be nowhere even close to adequate anymore. We need to address this long-term. We are NFFE. We're labor organizers. It's about empowering our people to make the change long-term to come together with our partners, with Grassroots.
I love Grassroots. You guys are doing great work. Congratulations. That was a part of it. The union's got an important role to play too. It's not mutually exclusive. We're one and the same. We have the same exact objective, but we need a long-term solution to the problem of wildland firefighters not being respected. A few-year reprieve is great and it's never been done. We're going to be celebrating and I hope everybody else is. I could barely keep a secret. I got called over to Secretary Haaland, Secretary Vilsack, and the OPM Director.
They told me, “Let us make the announcement at 5:00 AM.” I said, “Okay. I'll be able to shut up.” I called Max and a couple of other people. We need a long-term solution. The engagement that we have seen over the last couple of years is beautiful. We're getting a real taste of what we can do when we claim our power. When we say, “We're going to change this. We're going to let Congress know how bad things are going and leverage every lever of power that we can do with the administration. We're going to pull to make the changes that we want to make.”
Bipartisan Infrastructure Act: We're getting a real taste of what we can do when we claim power.
That's what it takes. Do you think structural firefighters are dealing with the crap that wildland firefighters are? No, they're not. We got to step up. We got to continue this momentum that we've built. We're in a great spot. This is a bipartisan coalition. You can't find bipartisan coalitions in Washington anymore. This is a real one. You got union people and rural communities coming together to solve major society problems. This makes me feel hopeful about the government about bipartisanship which is almost nonexistent. We all collectively made that happen and changed our lives, made society and communities safer, and put some food on our family's plates at the same time.
You should be proud. Everybody on this show should be proud as hell. I am, but we got to keep it going because if we rest on our laurels, it'll be a few years and that's it. This is the tip of the iceberg. We're going to get the job series right. Additional funding that's going to solve and fund this problem so that wildland firefighter pay. As you all know, that's the tip of the iceberg because there are 1 million other issues that are probably the most pressing and the first one that needs to be addressed.
Those haven't been solved yet, not in the long term to any degree. We got to continue this momentum and that's the plan. We're happy to continue to collaborate with everybody. The role that every individual played, I'm proud and yet everybody should feel good. I was telling the OPM Director and the secretaries there, “It doesn't happen very often that we got a real society problem and we address it where they listened to the workers.” They were going down the wrong road. They were figuring out, “Why haven't we gotten this pay raise yet? What's taking long?”
We're trying to figure out who should get it and who should get screwed out of the raise that they deserve. We delivered a message that says, “If you get this wrong, you're going to have a disaster on your hands.” They listened, hurt us, then came out and made the right decision. I'm proud of them for that. They deserve some credit for that. There's a long way to go, but a good start. Congratulations to everybody to help make it happen.
That's a solid start. That's one thing that the pairing of NFFE and the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters is like a unified voice. That's one thing that I noticed a few years ago when I was fighting fire. When I first started, it seemed like fire wildland firefighters were a blip on the radar. They disappear off in the woods for two weeks and they come back home, low open the buggies, and they're off to the next one.
Now the tables have turned. It seems now that wildland firefighters do have a voice and power. The powers are in the boots on the ground’s hands, and they have the power to change things in Congress or in wherever with pay, mental health, and even other things like the presumptive illness bill that was passed as well. There's going to be more down the road. It's very important that we recognize that the unified voice between Grassroots and NFFE is giving people power and it's a power that people never had before.
A unified voice with people inside the agency that know what right looks like and are advocating and pushing administratively to pull those administrative levers that they can that aren't legislative. There's a multitude of them. I won't name them because I don't even know if I can publicly.
It's important that you bring that up because there are people within the administration that are working with us.
They give a crap. I know that it is their number one priority to not only see what has come out and on a time-compressed basis, people are going to throw rocks at what has come out from classification and pay. It's still a work in progress and they're still willing to listen and include and expand the picture of what right looks like. To your point about unified and force multipliers, from 2007 through 2019, these conversations happened on a hillside, and then people went on their merry way and came back broke.
The fact that there are platforms and organizations to provide that unity and that unified voice in the same message is huge. It didn't exist a few years ago. That alone and the ability to continue that and provide a voice for the boots on the ground is something that certainly needs to be carried on. That's what's going to keep it in the media, keep the voice fresh in Washington DC and in the agencies to where we see the legislative and the administrative levers pulled to see this all come together and work.
Aside from this immeasurable amount of success that this represents on Capitol Hill, let's talk about some of the pertinent with the bipartisan infrastructure plan. Now there are some unknowns and we're not going to get into those because we don't want to give any information out there that could be changed or something that's hearsay. We don't want to give out anything that's speculative at all.
As far as the pay, what does that mean? I'm looking at section one on that firefighter temporary papers provision list that was released earlier by the joint interagency. You got all agencies in the DOI and the United States Forest Service. That's section one thing. The 50% base salary or $20,000 a year, whichever is less. What does that mean? That's a tough one. It only applies to certain people. As far as just the knowns because we're not going to speculate on anything like that, who does that apply to? What does that mean? When are we going to start seeing stuff? Do we even know any of that stuff?
What we know is what we've been told. From what I've been told, what we asked for, we're getting. We did ask that all primary and secondary positions would be included. From what I know, that's where we're at.
No GS cap or wage grade cap.
There's going to be stuff to fix. We all know that. I got this news. I had to keep a cap on it and that was pretty hard. We hit the ground running. We've been on the hill all day. We got back here and I haven't had a chance to go through every line. I don't know if you have, Luke.
I'm trying to also perform my day job duties, but to a certain extent, primary and secondary, it sounds like there will be some secondary positions that aren't in the 6C category that'll have to be included at a later date but primary, secondary, no GS cap, it sounds, and on the call that we heard from the DOI, the pays going to hit pocketbooks and pay period fourteen.
The one thing I'm not totally clear on and need someone with more intel because I haven't filled out paycheck aid or prefixes or any of that stuff in quite a while is the overtime LSA pay and the back pay associated with overtime. We didn't know that that was going to be a part of it. That's a huge win for all the boots on the ground.
That was the information I got. You guys have been putting a ton of pressure on Congress and the administration. We've been putting a ton of pressure on Congress and the administration. We got to this breaking point. They knew we were going to be here and they said, “Get it done. Roll it out. Give them what they want.” That's where we're at. Now we have to be like, “What exactly was it? Let's look through all this. Make sure we know what we're talking about.”
We have the breakdown in that fact sheet of what is enacted win, whether it's $20,000 or the 50%. I don't remember. There's a GS break and a GS/step break on what is what. In some of the questions that we've been getting pretty commonly asked, it's not counted towards your retirement. It's a base pay supplement. It goes to the base hours that you work per pay period. It's calculated off of that. That's part of those permanent solutions in that picture that needs to be painted. When permanent solutions come forward, what do the pay table and the pay look like? That is going to positively affect retirement benefits, overtime, and hazard pay towards retirement.
In a perfect world, I'm not saying any of that is written in stone or part of any legislation, but that's part of the permanent solution. As part of a bridge, a $20,000 pay raise, no less than 50%, and now you're classified as a firefighter versus a forestry technician that has to justify first responder benefits when you've been catastrophically injured or your family member's been killed. Now you're a firefighter and a first responder with hopefully, the proper classification, pay, and position descriptions to fully describe all of the operational things that folks are engaged in.
I know Steve and the Cali folks know well between SCBAs, vehicle accidents, the medical stuff, and the leadership in general from physical training programs to medical response to being HR for your folks. The list is endless of what folks have been doing for a long time with less and to see this step. Folks have said numerous times, it's a historical day and people should certainly be celebrating, but a lot of work to make a permanent right.
This is a giant win, but when we're done, it's not going to be a giant win. This is going to be a small win because there's much more to do. We are chipping away. You guys are following it and you're part of it. As a group, as one unified force, we're chipping away at this stuff. It was a policy change and not a law but we did get presumptive illness in the OWCP, and we got the special claims unit. That was huge.
We have a good friend here, Marty Walsh, the Department of Labor Secretary. He flew out. He came down to the NFFE office. He asked us what we needed, what he could do, and we were able to tell him. A couple of months later, he flies out to LA to meet with me and got a few other guys and say, “I listened to you. It's policy, but that can go away unless we get stuff done legislatively.” That's what we all have to do. Anybody reading this, you got to write your Congressman. You got to follow the issues. You have to get involved with Grassroots or NFFE and do stuff on your own. This is your career and livelihood. I get sick of seeing people crap about things and not stand up and do something about it.
It's an easy way out. It's easy to sit there and have that mop-up crap session or your craping buddy on the line. You can do something about it this right here is exactly proof. This whole Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is huge. Another thing that a lot of people missed is the whole classification thing. That's another huge win. Congratulations. You're a firefighter. Not when you're in the ground, but while you're on it.
This has been the disconnect with Washington in the field for decades. They're bean counters. They see a line and they don't see wildland firefighters. They don't know we're up there. They see a forestry technician and $15 an hour sounds pretty good for a forestry technician, but wildland firefighters, some of the most skilled firefighters in the world, are training the people that they're paying well. It's time for a change. It's time to let people know. Everybody's got to stand up and do their part. I don't want to hear anybody craping unless they're doing something.
In echoing in what Max was talking about, a lot of folks think they don't have any type of word to say. Throughout many years, I had probably less words of encouragement, more than encouragement saying “It's a lost cause. You're fighting for nothing. It's never going to change,” but here we are. You got myself gut and a lot of other folks throughout the region that are sitting here on Capitol Hill, not sugarcoating anything, but letting the medical aids know that we're not helping out and participating in other things outside of wildland fire, but let them know that we're division group supervisors, incident commanders on all types of incidents, whether it's natural disasters, COVID, or giving out the vaccine, whatnot.
My biggest challenge to the folks is to get plugged in and have a voice. I'm nothing special. I'm boots on the ground. If I'm over here sitting down with Congressmen and women and letting them know what we do, what we go through, all the pros and cons, and the negative impact about to happen if they don't take care of the wildland firefighters, my challenge to you folks out there that are reading this is get plugged in. There's no reason you can't get plugged in and have a voice.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Act: Get plugged in and have a voice.
The money's there. You put in towards it. I'll be honest with you. On the nippy side of things, we're as strong as our members. When they saw a lot of people getting it, signing up, and becoming members, they thought, “There sure are a lot of wildland firefighters organizations.” They started listening more, then you have me and guys in that room over here and spilling it all out. Everything that we've moaned about in that mop-up session and whatnot, we let be known 110% out there. My challenge to you folks out there is to get plugged in, have a voice, and tie in with one of us, and we'll make it happen.
You got two options right here. You got Grassroots, which is donation-based. It's a 501(c). It's a nonprofit. You do also have Union. I don't know what the rules are with Union Forests or whatever that applies to you. I've never belonged to a Union force. You got two options sitting in this very same digital broadcasting room.
We have NFFE and Grassroots. Come together where we're at and imagine where we're going to be at next day, month, or year working together because it's a Band-Aid. If we come together strong of both and everybody else joins in the fight, it's not going to be a few-year thing. This is going to be lifelong. For all the folks who sacrificed, whether it's getting burned over, suicide, or cancer, we're fighting for them. That's why I'm here.
I'm Erin Kidwell. I'm the Region 6 CVP. I'm a Timbercat. I see a lot of comments from people saying we haven't done a lot, but I want to remind people that this is your union. You can stand up. You can get paid on official time to do this work. I do a lot of official time doing efforts for people that don't benefit me, but I see the value in our union. We got a lot of young new fire people. You guys are some of the most organized people. If we get you guys into leadership and into these roles, we can get stuff implemented because you guys know how to make decisions.
I'm in Timber. I see all this NFFE stuff. I see people not making decisions all the time. When I look at the fire organization, I see people who make decisions and who know how to get things done. We need you guys to step up and take this. Don't come to me and say, “What have you done for me?” because I got my priorities too. I'm trying to help people as well, but you guys can take this. You can do it on official time. There is much time that you guys are not taken advantage of.
We all have agency jobs, but there is so much time that people can put in there and you guys take advantage of this time and to be doing great things for yourself and the unions as great as you. We've done a lot in the past. Unions have done a lot of things. We're a new generation. We have new concerns. You have a moment going on here. I'm excited to see what you guys are going to do with it. Take it. Do it.
You mentioned something powerful there. You have the ability to crap, moan, cry, and also complain about the systems that are the vehicles of change. However, if you're a paying dues member or if you're generally interested in it, it's like that old adage, “Don't come to me with problems unless you got a solution wall. Why don't you not come to me with problems unless you want to be a part of the solution?” That's a bigger thing. You got two options right here.
I don't see retaliation, honestly. I'm like, “Go get her.” I'm going to tell you, “What's up?” and I'm not getting retaliation. People say there's retaliation out there. I haven't seen it. Everyone has it.
There are some.
Don't worry about that. I've seen a lot of support for the union, even the supervisors' management. Second, better your career.
Anybody in the Forest Service, their best friends are Grassroots and NFFE. It doesn't matter if you're in fire or not, because all this stuff is going to spill over. Once we get done with this, we're going to make everybody else's jobs easier and better. It is all Grassroots and NFFE. There's not one person. Vilsack is on our side. He wants to help us out. He knows we're doing good things for the employees here. If you get involved, your supervisors are going to be happy and if they're not, I don't know what they're thinking.
I want to thank you, guys. It's been awesome getting to know you over the last couple of years now and seeing all that you've done. It lights a fire under our asses. I'm sure we do the same for you and we're all hitting it from either side, but with one unified force, and that's how we're going to get stuff done. We're going to keep doing it. As I've said before, anybody reading this, get involved with both of these organizations. You don't have to pick one. You get involved with all of us. This is one movement
I've said that in the past. I'm an advocate for advocacy. Wildland firefighters, there haven't been a lot of folks in this community. It's been Fire Family looking out for Fire Family and GoFundMe accounts and Wildland Firefighter Foundation, but there haven't been a lot of folks looking out for people. Advocate for advocacy and a unified voice. At the bare minimum, go to the Grassroots page and click get involved and get your mom, dad, aunts, and uncles involved.
The messages are pre-typed and go specifically to your representatives in the House and Senate. The bigger the voice, the stronger the message and the more change and the quicker you're going to see the change. It's a historic day, but there's a long road ahead to make this permanent change and turn it into a career that people can go home to on a year-over-year basis and retire at least hopefully happily.
The bigger the voice, the stronger the message, and the quicker you will see the change.
Given that we don't have all the answers right now and we'll get them as they come, are we going to be answering questions with everybody understanding that half these questions, we might have to say, “Get a hold of us later?” I'm fine with that. I’d like people to voice their concerns and maybe throw us some questions to see if we can answer anything.
You are comfortable with that from both parties here, Grassroots and NFFE. If you guys would like to answer some of those questions, we scheduled a Q&A session, but we have a lot of gray areas that we have to navigate through and find out the exact problem. Margaret Jones asks, “Is there talk about movement towards getting rid of the age limit for PFT jobs?” This doesn't sound like there's part of the Infrastructure Bill unless you guys happen to know something that's planned for the future. The age-out timeline is 37 and a half.
I have heard that they are possibly looking at upping that like they did when it used to be 35. I don't know if that's a policy change. I don't think it's a legislative change, but I've heard grumblings of that going on. They are doing that in the gray area with veterans. They have to sign that waiver. That's what I know. I don't want to get into it more, but I've heard grumblings.
Luke, have you heard anything about that?
I'm in the same boat as Andy. The only gray area there is with the Land Management Workforce Flexibility Act, and I don't know enough to speak intelligently about it. I'm not going to touch it, but I'll work on finding an answer.
That might be something to be working on in the future here. The second question we got is from Margaret, “What about back pay for folks who have swapped agencies per se, like the Forest Service to NWS, or Fish and Wildlife to DOM, any of that stuff? Do we have any information on that?”
I would double-check the crap out of your pay stubs, but I would assume that if you're in the system, you would be eligible for those pay raises, but systems talking to systems will probably take some phone calls with HR.
I would feel that you are entitled to that, but double-check your pay stubs and if there's a discrepancy, get ahold of us. That is where we fit in.
We've already confirmed the retroactive payments that are going all the way back to October 1, 2021. That was a big one. What about wage grade? I know the dozer operators out there, the wage grade folks, they have a lot of questions. They want to be included in this.
Wage grades are included, 6C wage.
Here's another important question. For those temporary seasonal folks out there, Margaret Jones is asking how the breakdown would work for the seasonals. I know that the 1039 appointments are a six-month work schedule. Now, does that money apply to the 1039 employees? What if they go over their term?
As long as you're getting base pay, you're not going to get it once you're in non-pay status or essentially laid off by the Fed. If you work, you're getting a supplement.
A lot of people are asking about how the incentive of the pay supplement will be taxed. This is going to be taxed. Let's clear up the overtime thing in case people are reading in case they did not read it before. We need some clarification on that overtime.
I want to have clarification on all that before we start talking about it.
There's a big thing with the FFLSA and the exact non-exempt and all that stuff. It gets complicated real quick. A lot of people are talking about secondary fire positions, and one of them most often comes up about secondary fire positions or dispatchers. Let's talk about that a little bit.
If they're in 60, but there are dispatchers with the same duties that aren't in 60, that's something that needs to be cleaned up or at least clarified or included, which it sounds like there's room to do. Right now, if you're not in a 60 position as a dispatcher, but your duties are essentially primary fire, there's wiggle room in there. It’s what I heard from folks in the WL but that's yet to be clarified. I can't give you any concrete answer other than that people know about it and are going to be working on it.
There are going to be issues. There's going to be people that, “We're going to have to do some fixes. We're going to be working our asses off trying to get fixes done.”
They expedited the crap out of all this. They said even from the OPM side, this classification usually takes a minimum of a year and they expedited it in six months then the administrative work to even be able to get money into paychecks. Since the law was passed, people wanted immediate gratification but a little bit of wait pays to see it done right as this has come out, and it's still going to need some love over the next few years.
You know how things are when they're hurried and rushed. Typically, the ball gets dropped somewhere in there with some T not crossed and I not dotted. That's what we're here for, though.
We were not pushing for this series to be done this quickly. What we were pushing for is to have this pay done, but the agencies wanted to roll it out with the pay and the series. You can't have your cake and eat it too. We might have to work on the series a bit. At least we got money in people's pockets. Everybody's going to be pretty happy with that. We can go back and do the fixes on the series.
A lot of people are still asking if it's a one lump sum payment or if it's going to be divvied out over the course of your work year.
The $20,000 or 50%, you get that as a two-week supplement based off base pay, is my understanding.
There will be lump sums going back to October 1, 2021.
There are also cash awards that'll be coming in the form of the FL essay. Overtime pay is what it also sounded like, but I don't have enough understanding of it to speak concretely. I think there's going to be a combo of cash awards and then the supplement. One other thing I read is that they'll essentially round the numbers. There are going to be other cash award payments if you were undercut on the supplement pay. There's a lot to be worked out and seen.
Monitor your paychecks and know the system. I don't mean this in a crappy manner, but a lot of this stuff like, “Educate yourself. Read these facts that have come out. Read the press releases. Read the information that's out there. Educate yourselves. Advocate for yourselves. Be able to call BS when you need to call BS and ask the hard questions when you need to ask the hard questions.”
Bipartisan Infrastructure Act: Educate yourselves and advocate for yourselves to call BS when you need to call BS and ask the hard questions when you need to ask the hard questions.
You need to be your own best advocate in that manner. For instance, when I was transferring over from the foresters to the back to the Bureau of Land Management, I had to have a fight with Albuquerque to get my retirement and my service computation date rolled over to the correct dates. You're going to be your best advocate at the end of the day and educate yourself like Luke was saying there.
One thing I did see that was kind of notable here with the hourly supplement, it looks like the cutoff for the $20,000 needs to be at GS-6 Step 1 under the rest of US locality pay. That's what's going to qualify you for the full $20,000. The tanker base people, that's going to be back to the 6C retirement schedule. Do you guys know where you can find that? It should be on your SF-50.
I don’t know if there are a lot of people that don't know they're paying into a 60. You guys are paying more into your retirement than others.
Alex Newlan is asking if we could add the cash award directly to TSP or do I have to deposit that into my IRA?
There are a couple of ways you can play around through TSPs. When he thinks he's getting or even after it, he can up his percentage contributions or take that money and put it in his IRA. That's totally up to you. I don't think this supplemental is going to affect your TSP. If you're doing 15%, it's going to be 15% of your GS salary. By all means, if you want to kick that up to 15% or 30%, whatever, do it while the money's there and the market's low. Everything's on sale. Is that what you're saying?
You're buying more money. Thanks, recession.
There was one I read. Where will this count for a promotional detail? I'll let you know. I started one as a battalion. I hope so, or else I'll have them cancel the detail.
It sounds like we've gotten pretty much most of the pertinent covered, as far as who it applies to, the geographical areas, all that stuff, and how it's going to be doled out. It's the finer details, like the exact dates, and all the little minor stuff that we need to figure out. That's going to take some groundwork from both Grassroots and NFFE.
Also, individuals.
There's a lot of confusion about how Federal unions work. A lot of us here read it. If we post union stuff, we get bashed pretty hard and whatever. To be a union person, you got to be thick-skinned. There are five of us in the room, besides Max, he's the only one who gets a paycheck for doing this. I don't get crap for extra money. I was fully prepared for Region 9 not to get this money and continue to fight and be a little pissed off. Probably have an extra beer that night.
You've got Mark, Erin, and myself. We don't get any extra pay. We do this stuff just like Grassroots does. How many times have I been on the phone with you, Mark? It's 9:00 at night my time, and we're hashing crap out. The other thing that would be cool if we could do at some point is in a show explaining how Federal unions work, what we can do, what we can't do, and how we're structured to all the fire guys. I think there's a great misunderstanding of how that works. We can't go on strike. We can't ask our boss for more money. That's illegal. We're at the purse strings of Congress. People see what IAFF can do. They can go on strike, on the table, and say, “Screw you.” We can't.
There's a lot of talk out there. There was a big movement for a lot of people. I was trying to calm everybody's jets there. There was a lot of talk about a strike and I'm like, “This has been done before. It didn't work out for those people.”
They got fired.
“Do you mean to quit your job?”
One question that is inevitably going to be brought up for the classification thing is if you do remain in the 0462 or the Forestry Tech Series and do not elect to go to the 0456 Series, are you still going to get paid because you still have primary wildland firefighter duties? That's an important one.
At least in the facts, if you don't elect to go, you'll still get the supplement. Who knows once the permanent solution is put in place if that then apply to 0456 strictly?
My advice would be to go ahead and become a wildland firefighter.
There are a lot of fringe benefits that come with that.
Don't make jumpers anymore. We're all wildland firefighters
I don't want to get into the new classification because there's a lot there, a lot of stuff that we don't know about the new series unless you guys have any pertinent to add.
I'm also the guy who talks to Jaelith and Jerome Perez, once a month with Kobe Miller. Our understanding is their goal is to have us into that series end of this calendar year 2022 and the beginning of the next calendar year 2023. We're not in it. There's going to be a process to get into it. We have a lot of questions. If you elect not to be in the series and you realize it's the place to be, what's the process for getting into it? Anybody who is newly hired, you're not going to have a choice you're going to be in that series. For current employees, you'll have a choice. We'll have to negotiate how that works with the agency. We will get those questions answered. We'll get the details, but that's going to be a fall project.
I know there are going to be some questions with the whole classification like night diff, hazard pay, and OT. Do those still apply so far?
Yes.
This is the last question and an important one. If a permanent or a seasonal resigned and they were still working in 2021 and part of 2022, are they still entitled to that back pay or is that one of those finer details that need to be hashed out?
I feel they are. That's a hard one, but we'll get back to you.
That's pretty much it for all the pertinent and Q&A sessions unless you guys have anything else to add to it.
I want to say thanks to Brandon, Luke, and everybody at Grassroots for working with us and helping this fight. Thanks to all the dues-paying members out there that keep us going. I'm not here to sell the union. It's not something that I sell. The way I look at it is there are a few people that pay dues that make this happen. A lot of other people are like, “Why would I pay dues? We got a union. I benefit from it.” We're only as strong as our members. A couple of years ago when I came on, I made it a real point to go out and start talking to people and get more people signed up. When I did that, we got a lot of support from the national office to go all hands on deck.
It has been a few hundred. We had every one of our business drafts, every one of our lobbyists working on this stuff for the last few years and it's because wildland firefighters stepped up. They signed their 1187s and they became members. We're going to get more done. When we show up and say, “DC is expensive.” It is, but the more membership we have, the stronger we are. Get involved. Call me. Most people know how to get ahold of me at this point. If you don't, ask somebody. Everybody's got my cell number. Trust me. It doesn't stop. Get ahold of me. We'll get you involved. We'll get you out here.
If you've got a good story, come out here. Talk to some Congressmen and Senators. Tell them your story. It works. I was talking to these guys and they were saying, “What should we wear when we come out there?” When we met with Marty Walsh. We sat in the IAFF building. There were 30 people there. Everybody was in suits. The only people that weren't in suits were the NFFE wildland firefighters. They sat there with their NFFE shirts on.
If you have a good story, come out here, talk to some congressmen and senators to tell them your story.
The Secretary of Labor did not look at one other person in the room. He looks straight at our wildland firefighters, and he asked them what we needed. He'd talk straight to them. He asked them what they did. Like everybody else here, you will make a bigger impact than you realize. You come out here and you talk. You come out here, and if you're a real person, they don't get to meet a lot of real people. Your story goes a long way. Get involved. Get ahold of me. Thanks, Brandon.
NFFE or Grassroots, whoever wants to be involved all we can do is be force multipliers across the board, more unity, and a louder voice. I could honestly give two craps about credit. I want to see the change. For what I consider my fire family well over 10,000 plus hours overtime, spend the dirt with folks that I've seen bleed, die, lose their families, and go through a lot of crap. I want to see the system look right. It's one of the reasons I resigned from the agency.
We're on the precipice of seeing this shit happen. Keep it up. Join the fight. Join in whatever avenue or way that you can, you want to, or you can afford. Get involved. We're here. It's not us. Grassroots Wildland Firefighters aren't the people that make up the executive board or the anonymous spots. It is the people that are wearing leather boots and Nomex right now. It's the entire community. Get involved because it's your voice. Once my voice is out of date, then we'll bring someone in. They can keep it up to date. Thanks for the opportunity, Brandon, and NFFE. I appreciate the opportunity. It's a historic day. Celebrate. If it's not what you want right now, then let's make it right.
Grassroots, wildland firefighters aren't the people that make up the executive board or the anonymous spots. It is the people wearing leather boots and Nomex right now. It's the entire community. So get involved because it's your voice.
Sign up for the union, donate to Grassroots, and find out more about both organizations. I want to say a huge shout-out to you, guys. This wouldn't have been even remotely possible without the unified efforts between Grassroots and NFFE, and also the concerted efforts of every wildland firefighter, every Federal wildland firefighter boot on the ground. That is a huge step in the right direction. Thank you for your efforts. I appreciate the crap out of it.
It's all of us. It's you, too.
See you.
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It’s another episode in a special edition mode for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Thank you so much for the efforts that the NFFE and the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters have put into this whole thing. I know that our work has begun. With that being said, I want you to head over to the NFFE and the Grassroots. Join up and see what you can do to help.
If you want to find out more, go over to GrassrootsWildlandFirefighters.com or NFFE.org to check it out and find out ways that you can donate and help. Sign up for all of that jazz. Thank you so much for the work you guys are putting in on Capitol Hill, and there'll be more to come. I'm sure this isn't the only thing that we're working on, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. You all know the drill. Stay safe. Stay savage. Peace.
