Chip's Blog

As I watched Jim Barretto this morning on the "Legally Speaking" segment, I was praying that he, and Kim would put their two seperate stories together.  The hospital smoking ban in Ohio, and the disability pension fiasco in Boston.  Those stories don't intersect, you think? 

Actually they do, and in a way the general public should like.  Since November 1, 1996, firefighters appointed after that date may not smoke.  Not on the job...not at restaurants...not at home..not at all.  This was driven by "pension reform".  In the late '80's, most communities in the Commonwealth's employees were covered under County Retirement Systems.  (Not Boston, who maintained their own)  These county retirement systems were crumbling under the weight of disability pensions from police and firefighters.  What most citizens may not know is that these folks work under a "presumptive Heart and Lung provision" that assumes the stress of the job, and inhaled toxins causes heart and lung disease, and any such disease is presumed to be job related.  Makes sense, actually, if you factor in otherwise clean breathing habits and a decent degree of physical fitness.

So, when the Legislature "bailed out" the County Retirement Systems, what they really did was to absorb them into the State Retirement System and to place administration of retirements under the "Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC)"  They also passed a law that requires that PERAC promulgate and maintain physical fitness standards for firefighters and police officers.  This law is Chapter 31 Sections 61A and 61B.

This law didn't stiffen the standards for a disability retirement, it stiffened the accountability on how they were awarded.  Firefighters lost the right to smoke.  They also have to pass a state mandated physical fitness test, and to be retested every two years.  I was intimately (and trust me...at times it felt like the "other kind of intimacy"!!!) involved in the negotiations for these standards as a representative of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts.  At that table was the President of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts as well.  None of us opposed the standards.  All of us wanted to ensure they were fair and equal.

The moral of this story?  Almost all firefighters in Massachusetts work under strict rules regarding disability retirement.  Only Boston doesn't.  Not because of the firefighters, or the Union.

You figure it out!!!