2013 - Woburn Fire IAFF 971 vs. City of Woburn

In 2013 Attorney Barrault secured one of the first Massachusetts Joint Labor Management Committee decisions in decades, awarding the Woburn Fire Union a three-person minimum staffing provision. Well-established national standards demand that fire departments respond to fire scenes with at least three person crews, however the City of Woburn would not take this concern seriously at the negotiating table. The Arbitrator’s decision granted an increase in  per-piece manning and stated emphatically that “this is not a real choice – no firefighter will stand outside a burning building with lives at risk and wait for backup.”