The conflict between the city of Tallahassee and its firefighters’ union continues. As Margie Menzel reports, the two sides are now split on whether to ask a special magistrate to clarify his recommendation – and that means he can’t do it.
After about a year of negotiations, both sides have said they’d agree to a recommendation issued by a special magistrate, but there’s just one question…are the raises he recommended retroactive?
Christopher Shulman issued his recommendations on June 17th. That’s when the city says the raises should start.
But the firefighters say they’ll only accept the recommendations if the raises are retroactive to last October—the beginning of the contract year.
The firefighters asked the magistrate to clarify his intent, but the city objected to that request.
Shulman says that without both parties jointly asking him to clarify, he is "without any statutory or administrative authority” to do so.
