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Warwick man,

Wrong again. In 2012 when all the unions took a zero pay raise, the FF's cried foul and negotiated 2 issues with Avedisian. The first was that they got the max accumulated sick pay increased from 120 days to 140 days. That totaled an increase of 4400 days added to the bank immediately which can be looked at as deferred compensation or a raise. No other union got a benefit increase during that contract year.

The second thing that they did was to change the last few words in the contract under section 6 unused sick pay, (the annual benefit) from the words, "and shall be paid to the employee by the thirtieth (30th) day of March of each year" to the words

"and shall be paid to the employee by the last day of each month."

Then, they began adding in the difference between the allowed percentage to be paid and the residual of the 1.66 days per month. The end result was that a man could take a sick day and also be paid for not taking a sick day in the same month. (which in turn resulted in another man coming in at time and a half) That language allowed the manipulation, however, the important language in the contract addresses the amount of days and percentages that a man can be paid. This "math error" allowed both the number of days and the percentage of payment to be exceeded. These are just simple mathematical facts.