After eight weeks without a deal, Stockton firefighters and city officials have reached a tentative contract agreement.
President of Local 456, the union that represents Stockton’s firecrews, Devin Robson told Stocktonia an agreement was reached Thursday morning. The union’s new contract heads to City Council for approval at its next meeting Tuesday.
The city agreed to add longevity pay to the binding agreement, Robson said, a sticking point that had held up negotiations with the city. However, paramedic pay remains unchanged, keeping retention concerns in play.
Local 456 has been publicly putting pressure on the city for weeks, appearing before council and posting videos to social media counting the days firefighters worked without a new contract.
Earlier this month, the union briefly took down one video amid hopes of a breakthrough and then reposted it the next day, saying there was still no resolution at the time.
“While city leadership continues their in-fighting, your firefighters continue to work day and night for your safety,” the union said. “Stockton Firefighters (per capita) are among the busiest in the State, and the least staffed in the State. Local 456 is only asking for a fair contract.”
The contract will set pay, staffing and scheduling for a department that serves Stockton from 12 stations with roughly 200 sworn operations personnel and about 80,000 calls a year. City and FirstWatch data show that workload drives overtime, tests response-time goals and weighs on retention, which has been a concern in Stockton for many of the city’s first responders.
What council will vote on next week
The agenda resolution would approve new agreements for three units — Stockton Police Management Association, Stockton Firefighters’ Local 456 Fire Unit, and Local 456 Fire Management Unit — and adopt longevity-pay side letters for each. It authorizes acting City Manager Will Crew to execute the agreements, what are known as memorandums of understanding, backdating them to July 1 when the 2025–26 fiscal year began, as well as increase appropriations from the city funding as needed to carry out the agreements over the next 12 months.
The council will also approve a budget amendment for the current fiscal year to pay for the $3.1 million increases the agreements bring, to be allocated from across multiple city funding sources:
- $2,075,620 to the General Fund
- $589,832 to the General Fund
- $337,559 to Measure W
- $50,530 to Development Services
- $46,001 to Emergency Communications
- $25,102 to General Fund Measure A–Police.
Line items for the Fire department cover cost of living, benefits, lump sums, longevity pay, step increases, overtime, vacation sellback and “annual leave as time worked,” with changes noted as effective Sept. 1, 2025.
Robson had previously told Stocktonia that Stockton firefighters are paid about 20% less than peers in comparable cities and that firefighter paramedics receive about $2.66 an hour in additional compensation, which he called “far below market.”
He had argued those gaps are fueling departures and hampering recruitment, noting 27 paramedics applied to Stockton earlier this year and none accepted employment, opting instead to work for other nearby agencies. Local 456 has never invoked binding arbitration and prefers to settle contracts at the table, he had said.
“The City remains committed to fair bargaining and good-faith efforts concerning all of our labor units,” city spokesperson Tony Mannor said in an email before the agreement was reached. “The Council has made recruitment and retention a priority, and the City continues to explore all opportunities to achieve that goal.”
Specific terms were not released ahead of the council vote; labor talks occur in closed session under California law.
Public comment sharpened the stakes
At a council meeting earlier this month, Local 456 members pressed city officials to agree to ongoing longevity pay, saying a one-year incentive wouldn’t keep experienced crews in Stockton.
Union representative Matt Knierim said at the time that firefighters rejected a city offer because the longevity pay “was limited for a single year, rather than continuous ongoing compensation,” and urged the council to write longevity into the agreement.
Kavon Marshell, a firefighter-paramedic, called the one-year proposal inadequate.
“It does nothing for the firefighters,” he said, adding that it reflected “a lack of appreciation” for Stockton firecrews.
Local 456 Vice President Colt Lee had asked the council to “show that you value your firefighters with a fair contract,” saying members’ “patience had run out” and some were “losing the faith in their leadership.”
What would have happened without a deal?
Measure N, approved by voters in November 2024 over the city’s opposition, requires a bargaining impasse with police or fire to go to binding arbitration before a three-member board: one arbitrator picked by the city, one by the union and a jointly selected neutral.
The board’s decision is final and binding. Critics of the measure note the process is relatively uncommon in California and say final awards can limit council discretion over the General Fund and shift leverage from the city to the unions in bargaining.
The measure was pitched as a way to speed up impasses and, among other goals, help Stockton compete on hiring and retention for police and fire. Had talks broken down this summer, the firefighters’ dispute was on track to be the first major test of the new binding-arbitration process.
A 2020 analysis of binding arbitration in Sacramento — one of the few California cities with the procedure — found that the city often entered into agreements with its police union shortly before arbitration was set to begin.
With a tentative agreement now on the table, that backstop may not be needed, but the council’s vote on the consent agenda at Tuesday’s meeting will determine any next steps.
According to the Institute for Local Government, a consent agenda — sometimes called a consent calendar — is a way for councils to quickly approve routine or noncontroversial items in a single motion, unless a councilmember requests to pull an item for separate discussion.