Firefighters and retirees from South Fulton's fire department lined up outside City Hall this week, holding signs demanding the city honor a contract it has already been ordered to follow once this year. At the center of the protest is a 3% raise the city says it will not pay on October 1, even though an arbitrator ruled in May that the underlying collective bargaining agreement remains in effect.
The dispute traces back to December 2023, when the City of South Fulton and the International Association of Firefighters Local 3920 reached a collective bargaining agreement, according to WSB-TV. The union says that agreement called for a 3% raise to renew automatically each year unless either side gave formal notice to cancel it, and that it also entitled firefighters to any cost-of-living adjustment given to other city employees, on top of that 3% bump.
Union president David Roseboro said the city never gave that cancellation notice in 2024 or 2025. Instead, he said, city officials simply began arguing the agreement had expired at the end of 2024 — a position the city has repeated. The station's report notes the two sides remain split on whether the contract legally lapsed or is still binding.
A Cost-of-Living Raise Firefighters Initially Missed
The clearest flashpoint so far involves a 4% cost-of-living raise the city gave to all other municipal employees in January 2025. Roseboro said firefighters were left out of that raise even though the union says the contract required they receive it alongside other city workers. Mike Johnson, representing the firefighters, said the city does not want to honor the contractual agreement, per the same report.
That dispute went to arbitration under a provision added to the 2023 contract, and in May an arbitrator ruled the collective bargaining agreement was still in effect. According to IAFF, the arbitrator found the city had violated the agreement by not providing bargaining-unit firefighters the 4% cost-of-living adjustment and ordered it paid retroactively. The union says South Fulton Local 3920 members will receive at least $2,000 in backpay as a result.
Following that ruling, the city agreed to give firefighters the cost-of-living raise along with retroactive pay dating back to January 2025, the station's report states. That resolution appeared to settle one piece of the fight — but not the larger question of whether the contract's annual 3% increase still applies going forward.
City Cites September Notice, Firefighters Cry Foul Again
On September 29, the city told firefighters it has consistently taken the position that its 2023 collective bargaining agreement expired under the law, according to the outlet's reporting. Days later, the city confirmed firefighters would not be getting the 3% pay raise scheduled for October 1.
Roseboro pushed back hard on that notice, saying the city's immediate cancellation claim ignores the agreement's language and amounts to another violation of the contract. He also said the South Fulton City Council voted to terminate the collective bargaining agreement rather than submit any counterproposals to the union — a move he framed as the city walking away from negotiations instead of engaging in them.
The city, for its part, says it is working toward a new collective bargaining agreement and hopes that a new deal will provide a more sustainable path forward. It is a dispute layered atop years of hard-won gains for the department: the union's first contract, signed in 2022, came after what Roseboro has said was nearly two decades without wage increases for South Fulton firefighters, according to IAFF.
For now, the picket line outside City Hall — firefighters and retirees holding signs insisting signed contracts must be honored — stands as the most visible sign that the two sides remain far from a resolution on what the 2023 agreement actually requires going forward.
