12/04/2026
The City of Salisbury is moving in the wrong direction and it couldn’t come at a worse time.
At a moment when departments across the country are struggling to recruit and retain qualified firefighters, police officers, and public servants, Salisbury is considering stripping away collective bargaining rights from the very people who keep the community safe. That’s not just misguided it’s tone deaf and shows a real lack of leadership.
Public safety professionals are already facing staffing shortages, increased call volumes, burnout, and growing risks on the job. Collective bargaining isn’t a luxury it is a critical tool that ensures fair wages, safe working conditions, and a voice in the workplace. Take that away, and you only deepen the crisis.
How does removing protections and silencing employees help attract the next generation of firefighters or police officers? How does it convince experienced personnel to stay?
It doesn’t.
This kind of decision sends a clear message: that the people on the front lines are undervalued and expendable. And that’s a dangerous message to send when lives, property, and public trust are on the line.
Salisbury’s leaders should be focused on strengthening their workforce, not undermining it.
Tomorrow night, the mayor looks to use the salisbury city council as his weapons to completely dissolve collective bargaining for not only your Salisbury Career Firefighters, but all city employees. A move that will without a doubt drive a mass exodus of sworn employees and impact the services you as citizens receive. As citizens, you must know the truth. Collective bargaining isn’t simply a money grab, as the mayor will narrate to you, it’s much more. It’s a voice at the table about fair work standards, such as promotion standards, time off, access to further education, access to better improved PPE or bunker gear.
It’s about having the right to be represented with another Union voice in the room, if you’re being suspected of a complaint. It’s about having a real voice an input on proposed departmental changes before they are made. That way the folks on the floor, actually running the calls and keeping your city functioning, have real input on what works and what doesn’t.
And yes, bargaining is about recruiting and retaining the best talent possible and to do that, we must first catch up and keep pace with other departments across the state and region, in regards to salaries. Salisbury has consistently been the lowest paying career department in the state for longer than most of us have been employed here. Year over year, we continue to lose experienced men and women to other departments across the state, most of which came down to the bottom line of salaries. With an ever increasingly difficult job market and frankly a job that most would never sign on the dotted line to do, we simply can’t keep being at the bottom of the barrel.
You as citizens have the right to your judgement on this matter, not one man! We ask that you show up, call or email your elected officials and ask that they oppose this tyrannical order.
