ST. LOUIS — Nearly 20 firefighters are asking a federal judge to enforce a 2017 settlement agreement between the city and a group representing Black firefighters, hoping to prompt public safety officials to unfreeze a hold on promotions in the department that has lasted months.
The group of 17 fire captains and fire privates filed a motion in the long-dormant federal case earlier this month. They argue the five-year-old settlement agreement between the city and the , a nonunion organization representing many Black firefighters known as FIRE, compels the city to continue making promotions in the department.
Leaders of Local 73 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, the union that represents city firefighters, have accused ѿý Public Safety Director Dan Isom of holding up promotions in the department since February, shortly after Kenny Mitchell, a former Local 73 official, was promoted to deputy chief. Union officials have said Isom has indicated a desire to review the Fire Department’s organization “from the top down.”
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They are not part of the most recent court action, but Local 73 has argued Isom does not actually have authority to hold up promotions to open positions for captain and battalion chief. Chief Dennis Jenkerson can make the promotions, union officials say, but he has indicated he does not want to cross his boss, Isom.
Promotions mean significant bumps in pay and pension benefits. But the city is still using promotion lists compiled following a 2013 test, the same test challenged in FIRE’s 2015 lawsuit. Some rank-and-file members have been waiting years for another chance to score higher and move up the list for promotion.
Local 73 has pointed to the 2017 settlement in that suit, which says the “city will not intentionally delay promotions from the current lists in anticipation of new lists being certified.”
The firefighters asking the court to enforce the agreement say the city “has actively engaged in unlawful conduct” by ignoring the settlement agreement and that FIRE “has stood idly by while the City has trampled on the Settlement Agreement,” their attorney, Elkin Kistner, wrote in a court motion.
But the settlement agreement also specified that the city would hold a new test for captain and battalion chief promotions by December 2018 — a test that never occurred. It also said new tests would be conducted every three years thereafter.
FIRE, in a response filed Thursday, argued against making promotions off the list, pointing out it should have been replaced twice already.
“The parties to the settlement agreement were not anticipating that firefighters would continue to be promoted off of the 2013 lists in 2022,” wrote their attorney, Joe Jacobson.
If the firefighters have issues with how the city is handling promotions, FIRE argued, they need to go through the union.
“They have no standing as individual employees to circumvent their exclusive bargaining representative in this matter,” the group wrote.
The city on Wednesday filed its own response, saying the court did not have jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement in the case. The city argued that nothing in the court’s 2017 order dismissing the lawsuit following the settlement agreement specifies that the court would would retain jurisdiction over it.
Promotions in the fire department have a long history of controversy, often due to racial politics. Jenkerson’s predecessor as chief, Sherman George, was demoted in 2007 after he refused an order from then-Mayor Francis Slay to make several promotions that had been pending since 2004 — promotions caught up in a prior court challenge brought by an African American firefighters group. George was the first Black chief of the department, and his demotion outraged many Black leaders.
Local 73 has its own issues with the new City Hall leadership’s new direction on personnel matters. It sued the city earlier this year over a major shakeup in the powerful Personnel Department, which controls promotions and administers tests. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones this year won authority from the Civil Service Commission to appoint an interim leader of the department after the sudden departure of longtime personnel chief Richard Frank. The union argues she does not have that authority.
The city in October signed a contract worth some $370,000 with testing firm PSI Services to prepare and conduct tests for captain and battalion chief, a process that is just starting.
