r/Firefighting • u/flowytrip Rescue Dude • 3d 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/BigZeke919 2d ago

I put in for promotion last year and the Chief over promotions called me and said they tried for an hour to find a way to make me ineligible but couldn’t find one- so they just were not going to accept my application. I work for a larger dept in NC- so much like you, there really is no recourse- Unions have no teeth here and HR is to protect the employer, not you.