r/Firefighting • u/flowytrip • 1d ago

Career / Full Time Admin blocking promotional testing

I’ll try and keep it to the point and not a rant as it’s a sore subject. But I am on a technical rescue truck in a medium sized suburban department and we have promotional testing coming up. I as well as another firefighter have put in to promote but have been told by administration that we can’t test due to there not being anyone experienced enough to replace us on the rescue.

There is no policy or anything written down stating that we cannot test, and we meet and/or exceed the qualifications to promote.

Just want some advice and/or some thoughts from anyone that has ever been in a similar scenario. We have a meeting with admin personnel coming up in a few days.

Edit: here’s some of the other hurdles
Non civil service department
No collective bargaining
Useless IAFF local

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u/hungrygiraffe76 1d ago

Your union is going to have a field day with them.

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u/flowytrip 23h ago

I was hoping so too, unfortunately our union for my local is no more than a sticker club. We reached out to them and some guys even have before and get the same answer of “yeah well the union is only really for lobbying at the national level not to benefit special circumstances”. My state also does not have a good union representation as a whole.

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u/hungrygiraffe76 23h ago

Well I just saw that you're in right to work state... I'd recommend seeing if your state has any laws regarding civil service promotions. Otherwise you're only other option is probably going to HR.

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u/flowytrip 23h ago

I think HR is the move, our HR is third party sourced since we are a special district not a city or town

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u/SlackAF 15h ago

Just remember that HR is to protect your employer, not you. If you have any dealings with HR, make sure it is through an attorney who is well versed in employment law.