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Medford firefighter union sues city for withheld back pay, mayor says it will be deposited soon
Each of the 102 crew members of the fire department are likely owed thousands, but the calculation process is labor intensive and has been riddled with errors, Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn said.
The president of the Medford firefighters union is suing the city for back pay going back to 2021, which was supposed to be paid after the union’s contract was ratified in November.
Medford Firefighters IAFF Local 1032 President Walter Edward Buckley said the complaint was filed in Middlesex Superior Court Tuesday. The union contract retroactively increases wages 2.5% in both 2021 and 2022 and 3% in 2023. Union members are also entitled to retroactive COVID pay and hazard pay, the complaint said.
Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn said that should amount to thousands for each of the 102 crew members of the fire department. In an interview with Boston.com, she said the process is labor intensive and has been riddled with errors.
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A financial team has been individually calculating the back pay for all 102 members since December — which is affected by promotions and new hires.
“The numbers just haven’t been coming back 100% accurate and until they do, we can’t issue payments because it is taxpayer dollars,” Lungo-Koehn said.
She said their hope right now is to get the payments out in next week’s payroll.
According to the union’s complaint, the city had initially said the money would be paid the first or second week of January. On Jan. 16, the union was told the payments only needed a signature, but a month later, they were told there had been inaccuracies.
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“The members of Local 1032 deserve to be respected, and that starts with paying them fairly,” Buckley said in a statement. “This Mayor and the City have held wages hostage and refused to compensate over 100 of our firefighters for pay as far back as 2021. When the Mayor plays dumb and wonders why morale is at an all-time low in this department, this should serve as a clear example.”
Firefighters’ February ‘work stoppage’
The suit comes after 21 of 23 on-shift firefighters in Medford called in sick, which allegedly cost the city about $92,000. Lungo-Koehn said she considered the “orchestrated” event a work stoppage, which came after her office notified firefighters of further delays in the payments.
“We apologize for it’s taken time, but no other union and no other non union that’s owed retro has ever filed suit or done a work stoppage,” Lungo-Koehn said.
The union called her claims “rumors and gossip.”
“Local 1032 categorically denies any involvement in or facilitation of sick time abuse. The Union has always been clear that sick time abuse of any kind is unacceptable,” they wrote in a letter posted to Facebook.
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