The State Supreme Court is denying the Watertown firefighters union's effort to stop the city's latest sick-time policy.

"Is it about safety? Or is it about security and compensation?" said Watertown City Council Member Stephen Jennings. "We in the city contend that the firemen are concerned about job security and compensation."

In November, the city ordered the department to reduce its staffing requirement from 15 to 13 and to stop "back-filling" when someone calls out sick. 

"And then it becomes a matter of not if or when safety breaks down and hopefully someone doesn't get seriously injured or killed," said Watertown Firefighters Union President Daniel Daugherty.

The union claims the staffing reduction would result in more injuries. In his ruling, Judge James McClusky says this "allegation of harm is speculative at best." 

"We didn't get this injunction. We want to get to arbitration as quickly as possible because we believe it is unsafe and time will tell when we get to arbitration who is right or wrong," said Daugherty. 

In November, City Manager Sharon Addison confirmed that the policy broke the latest contract with the department, but said it was a last-ditch attempt to curb overtime costs. 

"I'm very pleased with the ruling. I think it shows that the city is on track and it needs to stay on the right track," said Jennings. 

The department removed its heavy rescue truck from the road as a means to meet the new staffing requirement. Later, the union filed the petition to the court, trying to stop the policy before making it to arbitration with the city. 

"This is one of those cases where we're pretty sure they don't want it to go to arbitration, because you have the mayor and manager openly flaunting the fact that they violated the contract," said Daugherty.

"Nothing in their contract really addresses the safety issue so we had to go to argument with the job security stance and I think we were correct and we obviously won the case," said Jennings.

In a statement, Addison says she hopes the union's grievance on the manning clause will never make it to arbitration.

Addison's full statement:

"The City is pleased with Judge McClusky’s Order. The issue has always been about job security – never about firefighter safety.  The City contends that the existing minimum manning provision is unenforceable.  

​This Order follows much litigation by the Union – the most significant of which concerned its efforts to stop the demotion of the captains.  The City prevailed in an arbitration on that issue when the arbitrator ruled it was not required to fill captains’ vacancies.

​We are hopeful that the grievance filed by the Union on the minimum manning clause will never proceed to arbitration, as was the case with a similar clause in the Johnson City litigation.

​The City made numerous overtures with the Union to attempt to resolve the issue through negotiations, but were thwarted with every compromise it made. It looks like their goal is to bring as much costly litigation as possible to have the City abandon its efforts. We are hopeful that the ultimate outcome of this litigation will leave the number of firefighters and officers who are on duty each day and night to the elected officials, rather than the Union."