The city of Austin and the Austin EMS Association kicked off labor negotiations Nov. 30.
The meeting was the first of several in a series of talks to renegotiate three public safety labor contracts with emergency medical, police and fire departments.
Talks with the fire and police departments are set to start in 2022.
The city’s current agreements with all three services will each expire in September 2022.
“We look forward to working cooperatively with each of the fire, police and EMS associations to reach agreements that benefit both Austin residents and our public safety employees,” said Deven Desai, chief labor relations officer for the city of Austin, in a press release. “While this will be a challenging time to negotiate from both a fiscal and COVID-19 standpoint, we remain committed to transparency and fairness.”
Nov. 30’s meeting began with each team identifying issues in the current contract and comparing notes on which sections would need to be hashed out in greater detail.
Most of the negotiations took place in closed session, but some of the initial public discussions focused on items such as changing emergency family leave from three days to four to allow EMS workers two full shifts away from work in the event of a death in the family.
Negotiations over the EMS contract will continue over several weeks, including:
- Nov. 30
- Dec. 1
- Dec. 6
- Dec. 7
- Dec. 8
- Dec. 10
Meetings are livestreamed for the public here.
The current contracts for each service can be found here:
The city of Austin and the Austin Police Association agreement
The city of Austin and the Austin/Travis County EMS Employees' Association agreement
City of Austin and Austin Firefighters Association agreement
