Frank Ricci, re-elected as president of the New Haven Fire Union Local 825, at the union office in New Haven recently.
NEW HAVEN — Battalion Chief Frank Ricci is taking up another term representing the firefighter’s union.
Ricci was re-elected as Fire Union Local 825 president for his advocacy around union members’ rights and interests.
Ricci will have completed 21 years with the New Haven Fire Department Monday. He was first elected as union president in 2015 after serving as vice president and being a career-long union member.
“We’re really proud of our accomplishments in our first term and the thing that lets New Haven firefighters stand out is we returned the power to the executive board so things are more transparent, there’s more accountability and the members feel better represented than in the past,” he said.
As president, Ricci works closely with Fire Chief John Alston, Labor Relations Director Thomas McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer Sean Matteson, the mayor’s office and the 302 members of Local 825.
Ricci credits the good relationships the union has with city officials to the members’ willingness to work with the city.
Additionally, 50 members ran for the nine executive board positions, more than any have run in the union’s history, Ricci said. “We take that as a sign the our members want to be involved and we encourage that,” he said. He congratulated Vice President Patrick Cannon, Sergeant at Arms Dan Coughlin and all executive board members on their elections.
Ricci’s platform centered around the current labor contract negotiations and the union’s vote to leave the Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association of Connecticut, a union which represents the state’s fire departments.
Ricci said he and Alston are working to get a budget amendment passed that would restore the four officer positions for Engine Company 8 because it’s artificially inflating the department’s overtime reports. “It appears in the budget that they’re paying overtime to staff that company when really that company is within our minimum staffing,” Ricci said.
The union is also suing the UPFFA for allegedly misappropriating funds and collecting membership dues after Local 825 ended its membership January 2016.
The Local 825 executive board voted to end its “legislative only” membership with UPFFA because they felt “we need to get fiscal house in order and we could do an equal if not better job at the state capital for our members,” Ricci said. The the lawsuit alleges UPFFA continued billing Local 825 monthly for membership dues backed dated to January 2016. Local 825 filed a lawsuit for a judgment that they don’t owe backdated dues and they’re seeking the return of at least $96,000 in dues they believe were misappropriated, Ricci said. The case is being heard in Hartford Superior Court.
Ricci is one of 20 firefighters who sued former Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and other city officials in 2004 after the city threw out results of two promotional exams because few blacks firefighters earned high enough scores to make promotion. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the city violated the plaintiff firefighters’ civil rights by not promoting based on race. The city paid about $3 million to the 19 white and one Hispanic firefighters and to an attorney as part of a 2011 settlement.