The Warren County Ambulance District in July voted to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with the International Association of Firefighters Local 2665. This is the first time in more than a decade that the ambulance district has engaged with a union, said district Chief Tim Flake.

The proposal to unionize came from the ambulance district’s staff about a year ago, Flake said. With the acknowledgment of the board of directors, the district’s 21 full-time paramedics, EMTs and lieutenants voted on unionization in September 2020. Part-time medics and the district’s management-level administrators weren’t eligible to vote or become union members, Flake said.

Following 10 more months of COVID-delayed negotiations, in July the staff, board and union all agreed to a finalized contract that establishes employee policy for unionized staff members, Flake said. The contract is good for two years and will be revisited in 2023.

Paramedic Brad Angert, the ambulance staff’s union shop steward, said staff members were motivated to unionize because they’ve witnessed the success of unionized rescue agencies in neighboring areas.

“It’s pretty obvious when you look at other districts, most of the good, forward-thinking and forward-moving districts are union, and their administration works well with them. We wanted to do the same,” Angert said. “There’s a lot of benefits. You learn to work hand-in-hand between labor and management, and everyone has a voice. We work more collaboratively together.”

Jonathan Laubert, the secretary of the ambulance district’s board of directors, said the board believes the union contract is a positive advancement for the district. He said the process of negotiating the union agreement brought forward ideas to improve the district’s policies.

“Our main focus as a board is to maximize taxpayer dollars, to make sure it’s spent correctly. Part of that mission is to make sure that the teammates that we have working for the district are safe, and also that they can perform their duty in an efficient manner. We feel this (agreement) is a positive step in that direction,” Laubert said. “We hope, bottom line, that the teammates are happy in what they do. This was a project they came to the board with, and we could find no reason not to go forward with it.”

Chief Flake said none of the district’s public-facing services will be affected by the new union agreement. The contract is more about internal policies, such as rules for shift assignments and how discipline will be handled.

“I think it clarifies a lot. We’ve had policy and procedures in place, but I think it makes it more clear for everybody in the district to understand this is what’s expected, here it is in black and white. You do your part and we’ll do our part,” Flake commented. 

“We’re looking at it as another layer of support,” he added. “If there’s something going on, we have a third set of eyes to say ‘This is right’ or ‘This is wrong.’”

Flake said there have been two previous times when the ambulance district had a union agreement with IAFF 2665, but that the previous agreements lapsed. It has been at least 10 years since the last union agreement, Flake said.