City ratifies agreement with firefighters union
After months of fine tuning, a finalized three-year contract between the city and its firefighters has been ratified.
Butler City Council voted 4-0 at a meeting Monday evening, March 23, to ratify a collective bargaining agreement between the city and the International Association of Firefighters, Local 114. The agreement is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025, and lasts until Dec. 31, 2027.
City fire Chief Chris Switala said the city and the IAFF have been operating under a tentative agreement since July 10, 2025, when city council voted to ratify it. However, there were challenges to overcome before it could mesh with the entire agreement.
“Some of the terms of the tentative agreement, we might have agreed to this particular change, but when you look at the collective bargaining agreement, that particular change might impact three or four sections of the contract,” he said.
Mayor Bob Dandoy said no substantive changes were made between the tentative and final agreements.
Switala explained after the approval of the tentative agreement in July the biggest change was the platoon structure of the bureau. Instead of four designated platoons each working 42-hour weeks, the department would operate with three platoons each working 48 hours.
“We’ll have six on each platoon, so that way we can accommodate two people being off at a time without going into overtime,” Switala said in July.
The contract also included an 8% wage increase for 2025, increases of 3% for 2026 and 2027.
Dandoy and former Councilman Don Shearer said at the time the contract would reduce the number of overtime hours firefighters work and would cut back on numerous benefits in exchange for the pay bump.
“A lot of times, what was happening, if you look at the history of the contract, you were seeing benefits come into the contract to make up for (wages). ‘We can’t afford a wage increase, so we’re going to give you this vacation or holiday buyback,’” Shearer said in July.
Switala said during Monday’s meeting that contract negotiations for 2028 and onward were likely to begin around summer of next year.
