Firefighter pay fight gets court date for final showdown

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The City of Houston and its firefighters are just months away from a final showdown over long running legal issues regarding pay and collective bargaining rights.

Friday morning, the Supreme Court of Texas combined two cases in which the City of Houston, the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association and the Houston Police Officers' Union disagree about how firefighter pay should be set.

One case questions collective bargaining; the other the legality of a 2018 voter-approved pay parity amendment known as Proposition B. When Prop B passed, it was to set firefighter pay at the same amounts as a similarly ranked police officer. The police officers' union sued to stop that.

Houston police officers, who have higher salaries than Houston firefighters, objected to linking their salaries to that of firefighters, who have negotiated their contracts in the past.

After years of fighting in court, it now appears this final showdown will decide the issue for the city. Oral arguments are set for November 29, 2022. A decision is likely to happen in early 2023.

If justices decide the cases in favor of the firefighters, they could be owed millions in raises and back pay. It is money the city has said in the past it cannot easily pay. It is likely that by the time a court decision is entered, current Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner will be in his final months as mayor.

It is unclear what would happen if the city or union prevails. Houston firefighters have been without a contract since June 2017. The city implemented raises without a new contract or collective bargaining in 2021.

UPDATE: The following statement from Houston City Attorney Arturo Michel was received after our deadline:

"Houston is pleased that the Texas Supreme Court has agreed to review Houston's challenge to the HPFFA-sponsored Prop B charter amendment, which requires that firefighters receive higher police pay while still working under firefighters' more favorable working conditions and receiving their more favorable pension benefits. Houston contends that the charter amendment contradicts, violates, and is thus preempted by Texas law, Texas Local Government Code Chapter 174, which outlines the bases for firefighter compensation, and does not include any reference to police compensation or working conditions. If preempted, the HPFFA-sponsored charter amendment would be void and unenforceable.

Although briefed separately, the cases were consolidated for argument with Houston's pre-existing separation-of-powers challenge to the process by which impasses are resolved under the collective bargaining provisions of Texas law, Texas Local Government Code Section 174.252. In particular, Houston has asserted that there are limits on a Texas trial court's authority to resolve those impasses.

Consolidation of these cases highlights that the HPFFA cannot have it both ways: it cannot seek strictly to enforce Chapter 174's state-law provisions, as it would do in the pre-existing constitutional lawsuit, yet claim in the HPFFA charter amendment lawsuit that the same Chapter 174 provisions can be easily overridden and openly violated by an HPFFA-sponsored local charter amendment, depending only upon under which law the firefighters receive more money. By contrast, there is no conflict in the City's position in the two cases because the separation of powers case and the Prop B preemption case address different legal issues."

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