The revised version on House Bill 1828 was passed by the Pennsylvania Senate yesterday with a vote of 32 in favor and 17 against.

This HB 1828 orginally left the Senate several weeks ago unfriendly to firefighters and decimating our pensions. The hardwork of this Local and the firefighters across this state has helped change this legislation into a more friendly bill. It was your attending the rally in Harrisburg, your sending emails, and placing phone calls that changed this legislation. Additionally, the PPFFA Executive Board is to be commended for their hard and tireless work on this legislation as well as many of our other leaders from our other Locals across the state. They spent many hours away from their families and the job the last several weeks to defend a benefit that we hold so important and unthinkable of lossing. It is their hard work and yours that made this happen.

This is only the beginning of a long road, and there will be many other challenges, both politically and legislatively. However, we as firefighters, brothers can stand together to achieve our almost anything.

I would like to remind our membership to contact your State Senator Sean Logan, State Rep. Bill Kortz and Marc Gergely and thank them for their support on this important piece of legislation.

Jerry Tedesco, President, IAFF Local 10