Houston voted to give firefighters equal pay with police in 2018. Now, it's up to the Supreme Court
The Prop B case centers on this question: Do the standards for firefighter pay enshrined in state law preempt a new, local standard introduced by the charter amendment? State law calls for paying firefighters substantially equal to their counterparts in private sector employment. Prop B calls for paying them at least equally to their counterparts in police.
The fire union believes it has another advantage: the city, it says, is arguing against itself. The Prop B case has been consolidated in arguments with a separate case about the union’s pay dispute with the city, originally filed before Prop B was adopted. After the two sides reached an impasse, the firefighters filed a suit in district court to resolve the dispute, using a process laid out in the state law. In it, the union argued the city was failing to meet its statutory requirement to pay firefighters in a way that is comparable to private sector employees.
The city has argued, in response, by challenging two key tenets of the state’s collective bargaining law: the comparable standard of private sector employment, and the judicial enforcement mechanism the fire union is using. City attorneys argue both are unconstitutional because they delegate a legislative function to a court and fail to provide sufficient standards to guide its discretion.
In one case, the city is arguing Prop B violates the state’s private employment standard. In another, it argues that standard is unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the union says, lawyers for the city will have to argue both points in one setting.
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