The City of Hamilton is looking into allegations that its hiring practices for full-time firefighters are discrimin-atory.

Councillor Sam Merulla, chair of the city's community services committee, will conduct a conference call today with Hamilton fire Chief Jim Kay and a city human resources staff member to discuss concerns about firefighter hiring that were forwarded to Merulla in a detailed message.

Merulla said the concerns were raised by a senior officer in the fire department, but he declined to identify the person.

The issue relates to 30 conditional offers of employment extended recently as part of a full-time firefighter hiring campaign launched by the city in the spring.

According to the allegations, 18 of the new hires come from the existing pool of volunteer firefighters who cover places such as Waterdown, Ancaster and rural areas of Hamilton.

Despite the term volunteer, those firefighters are paid on a per-call basis and, as such, are considered city employees.

The most serious allegation of discrimination being investigated is that volunteer firefighters were required to score at least 70 per cent on the written component of the test but applicants from outside the geographic areas served by volunteer firefighters were required to score a minimum of 85 per cent on the test.

"We can't have a two-tier system in anything that we do at the city when it comes to qualifications," Merulla said.

The other concerns allege that the 60 per cent of new hires coming from the existing volunteers is far higher than required contractually.

Because of that, the hiring campaign discriminated on the basis of residence against those applicants who live in the parts of Hamilton already served by full-time firefighters. Volunteer firefighters must live in those areas of the city that receive volunteer service.

Based on their understanding of the city's collective bargaining agreement, both Merulla and Kay believe that the city is required to hire a minimum of 25 per cent of new full-time firefighters from the existing pool of volunteers and any other applicants who are already city employees.

"Any time you have a situation where potentially we're breaching human rights issues, our own collective bargaining issues and creating a two-tier system in order to accommodate a select few, I think we have some problems," Merulla said.

"At this point, I think it's important to state that we need some sort of understanding from all parties," he added. "Whether it's perception or fact, we need to deal with this because morale is far too important to jeopardize."

Kay said that he's not sure if there are different scoring criteria in place based on the category of candidate. He hopes to get an answer from the human resources department today.

"The hiring process is an HR-driven process," Kay said. "We're just the client, so to speak."

The chief also said that he suspects that if there are any differences in scoring standards, they could exist between internal candidates -- people already employed by the city, including volunteer firefighters -- and external candidates who aren't city employees.

"We've used the same process for many, many years and it's yielded some excellent candidates," Kay noted. "I would suggest they're among the best in Ontario, if not Canada.

"From an end user standpoint, I'm comfortable with that."

Henry Watson, president of the Hamilton Professional Fire Fighters Association, said he's been fielding calls from people who are concerned about the recent hirings. The HPFFA represents the city's contingent of just over 500 full-time firefighters.

"I've got a number of phone calls from concerned citizens, obviously people who participated in the exam who didn't think it was fair, or firefighters in general asking me is this true," Watson said.

"Their concern is how could the bar possibly be lower when as a part-time firefighter, they're already taking courses and other things.

"Why would the bar be lower for them? That's what I heard loud and clear from people who called me."

He stressed that his association plays no role in the hiring of full-time or part-time firefighters and he isn't pitting one side against another.

"This is about a hiring process for the City of Hamilton and it'll be determined by people other than me whether or not it's a legitimate process," Watson explained. "If it's not, we'd better get it fixed."

Kay said that it's not unusual for complaints to surface after any round of firefighter hiring.

"Why it's an issue this year, I don't know?" the chief questioned.

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