4th Court sides with fire union, deals another defeat to city

As local officials continue to assert that a portion of the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association’s collective-bargaining agreement is unconstitutional, they’re running out of appeals in their legal fight.

On Wednesday, the 4th Court of Appeals handed down another defeat to the city, ruling against its appeal questioning the district court’s decision to side with the firefighters union. The city has argued that the “evergreen clause,” which keeps nearly the entire contract intact for up to a decade after its initial expiration dates, violates the Texas Constitution and public policy.

But both a district court judge and the 4th Court justices disagreed.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and City Manager Sheryl Sculley say the city will proceed with the fight. Both expect that the city will ultimately win its case with the Texas Supreme Court.

“We are going to continue to push toward good-faith negotiations while this legal path is followed,” Nirenbrerg said in an interview from his City Hall office. “And if we get a contract negotiated before the ultimate Supreme Court decision, then that becomes a non-issue.”

Whether the fire union takes up the city’s offer to begin negotiations remains to be seen. That city has asked the union on nine separate occasions to begin, but the union has yet to come to the table.

Union boss Chris Steele said at a union-hall news conference Wednesday that his team “will not negotiate with a gun to our heads.” He has previously insisted that the union would not begin negotiations until the city dropped its lawsuit.

Steele also called on the city to release videos of their mediation sessions that occurred earlier this year. Steele said San Antonio residents have the right to see what took place. City officials say they’re amenable to releasing the footage as long as it’s made publicly available in full.

Lawyers for the city filed suit in November 2014, less than two months after the firefighters’ agreement initially expired. (They filed a similar suit against the San Antonio Police Officers Association that was rendered moot when the two sides struck a deal on a new contract last year.)

Steele and his union seem somewhat emboldened by the second consecutive court ruling in their favor. They believe the high court will uphold the previous decisions but warn of dire ramifications if the city is successful.

“We have been on record to say that if the city would just drop that lawsuit, then we would go to the table to negotiate within 30 days,” he said, adding that the union is now offering an “olive branch” and would begin negotiations within a week.

“I don’t understand why they continue to waste the taxpayer dollars,” he said.

If the city wins, the case would have statewide impact on other collective-bargaining agreements that include evergreen clauses.

The 4th Court of Appeals eviscerated the city’s arguments in its opinion on the city’s appeal, released early Wednesday.

“We hold the City failed to establish as a matter of law that the evergreen clause or the CBA as a whole is void or violates public policy,” Justice Luz Elena D. Chapa wrote for the court. “We conclude the evergreen clause merely extends the duration of the CBA, but standing alone does not create a ‘debt.’ The CBA as a whole is not unconstitutional on the ground asserted by the City because it contains significant provisions that, even as extended by the evergreen clause, do not create unconstitutional ‘debt.’”

Councilman Greg Brockhouse, perhaps the firefighters’ strongest advocate on the dais, called on his colleagues to have a public vote on whether they want to proceed with the lawsuit.

“Including the lawsuit against the Police Officer’s Association, the City has now lost on this issue three times in Court and wasted almost a million taxpayer dollars doing so,” he said in a statement. “The full City Council should review this course of action and go on the record in a public vote on continuing the lawsuit to the Texas Supreme Court.”

The council has historically discussed the city’s legal actions in closed-door meetings, but Brockhouse wants that to end and is calling for the dismissal of the lawsuit.

Sculley said in a statement that she’ll recommend to the council that San Antonio proceed with an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.