Daily News | Philly’s firefighters union wants unvaccinated members to get 8 hours of overtime pay for COVID tests
to file for eight hours of overtime pay each time they are required to complete weekly at-home COVID-19 tests before going to work, according to a union memo obtained by The Inquirer.
Bresnan said about 700 of the 2,300 firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs represented by Local 22 have secured exemptions from the mandate, almost all of them claiming they have religious beliefs that prevent them from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Because a separate department rule instructs firefighters to file a minimum of eight hours of overtime if they are required to work on days off, the union is contending that its members are entitled to eight hours of pay if they test for COVID-19 and upload their test results to the city website on days off, he said.
The Fire Department has spent tens of millions of dollars annually on overtime in recent years, leading to a series of critical reports from the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, a state board that oversees city finances. In the first three quarters of the 2022 fiscal year, the department accounted for $69.8 million of the city’s $185.8 million in overtime spending, according to PICA’s most recent report.
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