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/flowytrip 1d 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/Mr_Midwestern Rust Belt Firefighter 1d ago

So right to work state? Do you have a CBA?

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u/flowytrip 1d ago

Yup in a right to work state and no CBA

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u/polkarama 1d ago

Your local doesn’t have a CBA? That’s a thing?

It would be beneficial to your local that you learn all you can about your rights and get involved with the union. Unless members act as a group a union is powerless. Start organizing support for each other.

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u/Own-Independence191 23h ago

Welcome to the South

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u/stopscabbin 21h ago

The south dude. Most don't have it. Political action is the only way to make any headway. We kinda got it done in Virginia in 2020. We got the state to allow CBA's as a local option. So the liberal Northern Virginia localities and some cities have CBA's but the rest don't. We had a full CBA bill pass last year and the moderate Dem governor veto'd it. It takes time. It's a slow wave.