First responders in Alexandria voted to bargain collectively this week as part of the International Association of Fire Fighters. It was a landslide victory for the union, which now represents the first public sector employees in more than four decades to win a seat at the bargaining table in Virginia.
“Now we have an opportunity to make this place better, and that’s a big deal,” says Joshua Turner, the president of the union, Local 2141, and an Alexandria Fire captain. Turner says the city’s first responders have been plagued by staffing shortages and grueling overtime hours even as their salaries haven’t kept up with Alexandria’s cost of living. “Something’s got to change, and now we can be an agent for this change,” he says.
The vote represents a historic turn of events for organized labor in the commonwealth. A 1977 Virginia Supreme Court ruling barred collective bargaining for government workers in the state, hamstringing public sector unions in the decades since.
In 2020, a new law allowed localities to make their own decisions about collective bargaining and Alexandria took advantage of the law, becoming the first city to allow public employees to collectively bargain— paving the way for this week’s vote.
The vote was 99.39% in favor, according to the union, a notable margin particularly in Virginia, which is a “right to work state” where unions can’t compel workers to pay dues even if they’re covered by a union contract.
Turner says working conditions in the last few years have made collective bargaining particularly important to union members.
Between last Friday and Wednesday, Turner says he worked 96 hours, filling in on two 12 hour overtime shifts as a result of staffing shortages — hours that he says aren’t unusual for the firefighters, fire marshals, and medics the union represents. He adds that he’s one of only a handful of his colleagues still living in Alexandria, with some choosing to commute from as far as Pennsylvania and West Virginia to avoid the high cost of living in Northern Virginia.
“For the membership, it’s gotten to the point where it’s personal: their lives are being affected and they want so badly to help this community but they’re also saying they’re exhausted,” Turner says.
Kelly Gilfillen, spokesperson for the City of Alexandria, says the city “has long invested in the health and well-being of, and fair compensation for, its employees; however, more benefits are needed to strengthen our competitiveness in the job market.”
Gilfillen points out that the city’s 2023 budget includes a 6% compensation increase for firefighters, medics, and fire marshals, as well as increases for other public sector employees.
Still, the collective bargaining vote is a notable success for unions in the state.
“It’s a big move. It’s a very significant win for organized labor after so many years of being excluded from public sector bargaining in Virginia,” says Joseph McCartin, a labor historian and the executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. “Not only to win a vote but to win it by such a lopsided margin is a really big development and I think positions other unions, especially in Northern Virginia, to make similar breakthroughs in the months ahead.”
Labor experts note that the Virginia victory is a sign that unions can still have power even in the over half of U.S. states where right to work laws have dramatically undercut union’ capacity for organizing.
“What these laws do is create the problem of a free rider, where you can benefit from the union’s activity but you don’t have to pay for it, and that almost universally discourages a strong union,” says McCartin, adding that these laws have been pushed by business interests since the 1940s.
The commonwealth’s new Republican governor Glenn Youngkin has staked his opposition to Democratic changes in labor law, setting his sights on a repeal of public sector collective bargaining rights and committing to uphold Virginia’s right to work laws.
While union participation remains at historic lows nationally, hovering at around 10 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there has been an upsurge in enthusiasm for labor across the country, with a 68 percent approval rating according to a recent Gallup poll.
McCartin says that the pandemic has been a turning point for many workers, pointing to the dangerous and difficult working conditions as contributing to historic quit rates across the country. Inflation and the rising cost of living, he says, have also pushed many workers to unionize.
“I think there’s a mood that’s palpable amongst workers: from Starbucks workers, to Amazon workers, to the first responders in Alexandria, they’re seeing that being organized makes sense and we’re seeing much more of an impulse towards that in the past year or so,” says McCartin. “I think these things are not unconnected.”
Turner says the pandemic added a slew of new responsibilities, including vaccinating people, transferring patients between hospitals, distributing masks, and navigating the dramatically elevated risks of working on the frontline of a pandemic in an already dangerous job.
“You can’t respond to a car crash from Zoom,” says Jeremy McClayton, an organizer with IAFF Local 2141.
The first responders hope that their newly won right will be the first step in changing these working conditions.
“Any conversation about why we push so hard for collective bargaining starts primarily in the service to the community,” says Turner, who worries that extreme working hours puts a dangerous strain on the workforce, risking sleep-deprived and exhausted first responders who literally have people’s lives in their hands.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m pretty proud of what our locals accomplished and hopefully what is just the beginning of a movement of people coming together for their communities,” Turner says. “A little bit of hope goes a long way.”
