Now that the NYPD got an almost 10% retroactive pay hike, the firefighters are looking for a similar boost. The Uniformed Firefighters Association want to revisit the raises for the years 2004-2006 where their annual raises were 3.15% or less. The UFA wants a "comparable wage increase" and UFA president Steve Cassidy said of the NYPD's pay increase, "We knew that the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association was going to fight and we wished them well. They......

After two fires with fatalities and one with a firefighter injury, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and City Councilman Leroy Comrie expressed outrage over the FDNY's response to Queens fires. They say the new pilot dispatch program is endangering lives. UFA head Steve Cassidy says the fire response time in Queens is 5 minutes, which is the slowest in the city. Plus, the new policy gives too few details - mainly the address, not details like......

Anger and frustration about the Deutsche Bank fire that claimed two firefighters' lives simply continues to mount as the Uniformed Firefighters Association says helicopters could have prevented the tragedy. Union president Stephen Cassidy said, "I think it’s very possible that the outcome would have been entirely different." While responding to the Deutsche Bank fire, firefighters found that the standpipe was broken, which meant water could not be delivered to the higher floors immediately (firefighters ended......

Yesterday, the city announced that cigarette smoking by construction workers most likely caused the seven-alarm fire at the under-demolition Deutsche Bank building that claimed the lives of two firefighters on August 18. FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said, "Smoking was engaged in throughout the building, and particularly on the 17th floor, where the fire originated." However, the FDNY was not entirely blameless in the incident. It was revealed that the FDNY did not keep up with......

One firefighters' group is taking their attacks on Rudy Giuliani's record to the videotape. The International Association of Fire Fighters, which worked with the Uniformed Firefighters Association (already a vocal critic of Giuliani) and Uniformed Fire Officers Association, produced a video called Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend. It's roughly 13 minutes of explaining how Giuliani's action led to firefighters' deaths during September 11. UFA president Stephen Cassidy told the Sun, "We're just setting the record......

The firefighters' union has ratified a new contract with the city that offers big pay raises. For instance, the salary of a probationary firefighter goes from $25,100 to $36,400 (current firefighters will get an 8.16% raise). The head of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the biggest fire union, said the contract passed 56% to 44% and, "This is far and away the best contract negotiated by any municipal labor union with this city in this current......

The city and the Uniformed Firefighters Association have agreed on a new two year contract. The deal raises firefighter salaries more than eight percent and increases the pay of starting firefighters by almost $10,000. Members working in hazardous material and special rescue units will see a 12% increase in pay. UFA President Steve Cassidy thanked the mayor and Labor Commissioner James Hanley for an agreement that "represents a significant raise for New York City firefighters......

A strange fight has broken out between the FDNY and the firefighters' union. The union, Uniformed Firefighters Association, says that the FDNY won't allow firefighters to put up stickers of American flags, photographs of family or colleagues lost on September 11, mass cards or other seemingly innocuous items on their lockers. The FDNY says that firefighters are actually allowed to put up flag stickers or other "inoffensive material" and that the debate - which now......

Officials announced that victims names will be arranged at the World Trade Center Memorial, instead of being placed randomly. WTC Memorial designer Michael Arad's original plan was for a random listing of victims. From his winning submission:The names of the deceased will be arranged in no particular order around the pools. After carefully considering different arrangements, I have found that any arrangement that tries to impose meaning through physical adjacency will cause grief and anguish......

- A study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine shows that the lungs first responders to the September 11 attacks had the equivalent of 12 years of aging. The study continues to bolster constant claims that the World Trade Center's toxic dust had a deleterious effect on firefighters. amNew York reports the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association as saying the city needs to help September 11's first responders: "There......

Yikes: An Astoria man was killed when he New York Region > Man Is Killed Trying to Fight Mattress Fire in Queens" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/nyregion/27fire.html">tried to put out a burning mattress over the weekend. Koji Takagaka had fallen asleep with a burning cigarette, igniting the mattress, and his older brother Hiroshi tried to get the fire out by taking the mattress to the bathroom. However, the bed's flames became unwieldy and Hiroshi died underneath the mattress. Some......