Missouri fire departments and fire districts have to navigate an often complex network of compliance obligations. Both state and federal labor laws generally apply, as they do in other fields; however, firefighters also enjoy a number of protections specific to emergency services. In addition, the rules governing personnel decisions can sometimes be different depending on whether you operate as part of one of Missouri’s fire protection districts vs. within the structure of a city’s fire department. All of these factors can leave fire chiefs under the dual strain of trying to oversee their organization’s compliance protocols while also managing the day-to-day work of a firehouse.
Scarborough Law Office, LLC began as one former firefighter’s dream: to provide the support to fire departments that Carl Scarborough would have valued in his years as a firefighter. Our law practice is founded on understanding the issues that face Missouri firefighters from the inside out, and we are prepared to provide legal advice to help your fire department or district remain in compliance while serving your community. Call our office today at 816-230-5550 to schedule a consultation to address your needs.
Some of the most common issues in fire service employment law relate to the limitations of fire service employees’ options for outside employment. RSMo § 321.015 prohibits directors serving on fire district boards from holding other paid “lucrative” positions, but carves out a number of exceptions. Many directors may find these exceptions complicated to navigate, and might benefit from the advice of an attorney. Legal questions are even more common when it comes to how a board handles matters involving the firefighters it employs; compliance with all statewide provisions is a must, but in most cases districts will also establish local rules that will need to be assessed for conformity to state and federal employment law, including wage and hour and discipline.
Collective bargaining rights are guaranteed by the Missouri Constitution. Most public employees in Missouri are entitled to collective bargaining rights under RSMo § 105.510. While the law does not require public agencies either to accede to union demands or to reach a negotiated agreement, many organizations wish to engage and work with firefighter unions. Most typically, however, public employers are at a minimum expected to give firefighters’ unions a fair hearing under what is known as the “meet and confer” standard.
In many cases, robust labor contracts that both address firefighters’ concerns and respect the limitations of the public coffers are very achievable. The advice and support of an attorney who is familiar not just with the requirements of labor contracts but with the highly specialized concerns of firefighters’ unions can be invaluable in finding these solutions. Scarborough Law Office has extensive experience in the negotiation of firefighter labor contracts, from both the union and management sides of the bargaining table.
From the employees’ side, the process of union formation in Missouri begins with a petition, submitted to the State Board of Mediation (SBM) with an appropriate number of signature cards, proposing a new bargaining unit. The SBM is responsible for reviewing the contents of the petition and determining the appropriateness of the new bargaining unit proposed. Typically, this bargaining unit will be a new local chapter of an existing union; the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is a common choice, with local chapters spread across much of the state.
The legal status of collective bargaining obligations for public service employers has become somewhat complicated in the past several years. In 2018, the Missouri legislature passed a massive overhaul of the state’s labor laws. Among the changes the new legislation introduced, RSMo § 105.575 prohibited public employers from practicing “voluntary recognition” of a collective bargaining unit, essentially requiring any public sector employees who wished to organize to go through the official certification process with the SBM.
The 2018 legislation (House Bill 1413) carved out exceptions for some public safety professions from the beginning. However, some organizations representing public sector employees, mostly notably the Missouri National Education Association (MNEA), promptly challenged the bill’s constitutionality. The case made its way to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which in 2021 ruled that the challenged provisions violated the state constitution. Because the articles containing the unconstitutional provisions were not “separable” from the rest of the bill, the entire revision of Chapter 105 was declared void and unenforceable.
In some senses, the voiding of HB 1413 simply returns public sector employers and employees to the pre-2018 rules that had previously governed the formation of unions and the mutual obligations of employers and employees in collective bargaining arrangements. Unfortunately, however, those rules themselves were often somewhat nebulous for employers to follow, relying on a “meet and confer” expectation that did not set clear parameters for mandatory bargaining or how to approach the process.
Moreover, uncertainty about the potential for Missouri’s legislature to introduce new changes to the legal landscape in order to remedy the deficits of HB 1413 looms over employees and employers alike. Walking through the implications of the current labor law environment for your own district with an attorney experienced in the unique requirements and expectations of collective bargaining for employers and employees in the public sector may help fire district boards to clarify their current obligations and strategy options.
Personnel decisions in political subdivisions (i.e., fire districts) and in city fire departments are subject to a number of other considerations that establish some parameters for disciplinary proceedings.
At the city level, personnel decisions of various kinds are often subject to rules established by a civil service commission. Typical requirements include merit systems for employee advancement and procedural obligations for investigating any allegations of misconduct before taking any disciplinary action. Often the procedure for the investigation itself will be spelled out in careful detail.
In both city fire departments and independently established Missouri fire protection districts, personnel matters are typically subject to our state’s laws regarding transparency in governance. No firefighter may be hired or dismissed without a quorum of the board present, and because meetings of a fire district’s board of directors are open to the public and the meeting minutes are likewise made available for public perusal within a matter of days after the meeting has adjourned, the decisions in disciplinary action will necessarily become a matter of public record. The right to suspend or terminate any firefighter for certain types of misconduct is explicitly placed with a fire district’s board of directors under Missouri law; the conditions for suspension, however, are not specified.
While the lack of a distinct set of procedural criteria for fire districts’ disciplinary actions may seem as if it leaves the district boards with a great deal of latitude, reality in many cases is that the absence of a comprehensive statutory framework means boards are left to develop to develop their own procedures for determining when and how to investigate allegations of misconduct, how to calibrate disciplinary action to correspond to the severity of varying missteps, and when termination is the only appropriate resolution.
Usually your fire district’s rules for disciplinary proceedings will be spelled out in its employee handbook. There are two legal issues to keep in mind here:
Precision in the handbook’s language and consistency in its application go hand-in-hand.
One other factor that you will not find in Missouri law, but that can impact disciplinary actions significantly, is the terms of labor contracts. Many fire protection districts will be operating under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, established with the union representing the district’s firefighters. It is very common for these contracts to include provisions for how violations of an employee code of conduct or other workplace rule are investigated, the types of disciplinary action that may be taken (usually developed on an escalating scale intended to correspond to the severity of the misconduct), and the circumstances under which termination is considered a valid remedy. These contract terms may impose much stricter obligations on fire districts as employers than does statewide law.
The United States Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the primary federal law governing minimum wage standards and overtime pay calculations. The United States Department of Labor (DOL) has the principal enforcement responsibility for FLSA compliance and is also the usual source of federal guidance for employers. A number of specific provisions from the FLSA allow for either partial exemptions for firefighting professionals, or adjusted regulatory criteria for calculating hours and pay. At Scarborough Law Office, LLC, we welcome your questions about firehouse FLSA compliance.
The FLSA makes a number of exceptions to federal rules for overtime pay calculations. Among the most important of these for fire departments is that certain emergency first responders, including both law enforcement and firefighters, are subject to a different structure for comparing hours worked to pay periods than most other American employees.
One such exemption, as DOL guidelines explain, is that firefighters, whether they are employed by an independent fire district (political subdivision of a state) or a fire department (operating within the structure of a local, usually city, government), may have their hours calculated on a “work period,” rather than “workweek” basis. Work periods may be 7-28 days in length, but their function is to provide scheduling flexibility for emergency responders. Fire departments are not required to provide overtime pay compensation to firefighters until the ratio of an employee’s hours worked to the total hours in the work period is greater than the ratio that the number of days in the work period bears to 28. The example the DOL provides is that a fire department using a 14-day work period would owe an individual firefighter overtime pay once his or her hours worked within those 14 days exceeded 106. This structure for overtime pay calculations can offer benefits to firehouses, but using the exemption effectively also demands careful consideration of work period length and, of course, personnel management.
Many fire departments incorporate volunteer firefighters into their day-to-day operations. The obvious assumption is that “volunteers” are not subject to any pay requirements at all. The reality, as many fire chiefs will know, can be much more complicated. A general guidance document from the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), aimed at helping American fire departments maintain FLSA compliance, runs to more than 30 pages, many of them devoted to considering what does and does not constitute volunteer activity.
Volunteerism is both essential to the efficient functioning of society and a potential hotbed of compliance issues. If your fire department is working with any volunteer workforce, even if the volunteers work with you only in a limited capacity, you may want to consider having a consultation with an employment lawyer who is familiar with the specific obligations that apply to volunteer recruiting and management, within the broader framework of federal wage and hour laws.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law that entitles qualifying employees to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per 12-month period. While private businesses are only subject to FMLA requirements if they meet certain “threshold” criteria for business size (based on number of employees over a specified time period), public employers are generally considered public employers no matter their size. This “leveling” does not apply to employee eligibility; employees still typically need to meet other eligibility requirements, in order to qualify for leave under the FMLA.
The labor contracts established under collective bargaining often include specifications for paid sick leave and related benefits, independent of any mandates under state or federal law. Navigating all of your contractual and compliance obligations, honoring your commitments to public employees, and maintaining a fire safety team that is prepared to respond to any emergency requires a multi-faceted approach, and at Scarborough Law Office, LLC we take pride in pulling the threads together so that fire district boards can see the whole picture at a glance.
Employment law is always a complex network of intersecting and sometimes overlapping legal obligations. Personnel management issues are inherently challenging, and the difficulties can be intensified by the demanding environment of a working firehouse. Rather than attempting to track all of your firehouse employment law obligations on your own, you may find it helpful to turn to a Missouri lawyer familiar with the needs of fire departments and of the firefighters they employ. Reach out to a member of our team today by calling 816-230-5550.
