A deal tentative agreement between the City of Houston and the City?s Firefighters? union has been overwhelmingly voted down by the membership. About 93% of the union membership voted against the proposed contract mainly because of the introduction of strict caps on the amount of unscheduled leave firefighters would be able to take. Over the past year the city has had to make use of brownouts to contain costs which have grown significantly due to the increased use of unscheduled time-off which forces the city to pay other firefighters overtime to work the understaffed shifts. The caps on unscheduled leave were to be offset by a 4% raise, which the mayor indicated would be a ?net neutral? as overtime costs were reduced.
See "Firefighters union rejects proposed contract with City of Houston", KHOU.com, June 17, 2014