A Providence firefighter gets out of a fire truck that has been in service since 1987 and was scheduled to be replaced by one of two new trucks, at right.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — The Providence Fire Department drove its two gleaming new fire engines out onto the front driveway yesterday to show them off to the public — it was their windows, however, that drew the most attention.

The fire union has charged in a grievance that the new trucks were purchased in violation of the union contract, because the truck windows aren’t bulletproof.

A little-known provision in the union contract specifies that all new fire trucks bought after 1969 must be outfitted with bulletproof Lexan windows — and this latest chapter in the ongoing conflict between the city’s Fire Department and its union left Fire Chief George S. Farrell shaking his head.

Farrell said that no fire trucks have had bulletproof glass since the very early 1980s, and the contract language is long obsolete and traditionally ignored.

As a result of the grievance, the chief says that the new trucks will have to be operated with old, worn-down gear — hoses, nozzles, and axes, for example — when they enter service in a few weeks, as the city waits to see if it loses the grievance and has to use the money earmarked for new equipment to instead install bulletproof glass.

An arbitration on the bulletproof-glass grievance was scheduled for January 2009, but was recently postponed, Farrell said, so it could be many months before the matter is resolved.

“We’re all aware it was in there, but it’s been there for years and nobody pays it much credence,” Farrell said of the contract line about bulletproof glass. “It seems like more of a harassment issue on the union’s part.”

When the grievance came in, he said, “I just shook my head. That’s all you can do, just shake your head.”

The union and the city have been locked in an ugly contract dispute for years, with all recent fire contracts only settled in arbitration. The firefighters are still without a contract for the years from 2005 to now. The union has repeatedly picketed Mayor David N. Cicilline’s appearances, and the mayor has fired back with strong language condemning union tactics. The union has roughly 80 active grievances against the department, including the bulletproof-glass grievance.

Paul Doughty, president of local 799 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, responded with a blanket “no comment” when asked about the glass issue.

The union’s grievance, filed June 30, argues that the city violated the contract “when the city failed to equip all new firefighting apparatus with bulletproof Lexan glass. Namely 2 new pumpers ordered in 2008.”

The contract language dates to the late 1960s, Farrell said, when civil disturbances in Providence were far more common. Since he joined the department more than 27 years ago, he said, there has been no violence against firefighters that would necessitate bulletproof glass.

“There’s been no gunfire at fire apparatus, no rocks thrown at fire apparatus,” Farrell said. He did not know of other departments that put bulletproof glass inside their trucks. The cost of installing glass is also not clear — Farrell said that when the department told the trucks’ manufacturer, E-One of Ocala, Fla., about the potential need for bulletproof glass, they said they had never heard of such a request and would have to get back to him.

“She actually thought we were joking. Nobody had ever asked them to do that,” Farrell said.

Media staff at both the Chicago and the Los Angeles Fire Departments said that their fire trucks are not equipped with bulletproof glass.

The two new fire engines cost $390,750 each, and will be deployed to Engine 8 on Messer Street and Engine 11 at Reservoir Avenue, replacing engines bought in 1990 and 1987.

The city also bought two new ambulances this year, which are already in service, at a total cost of roughly $300,000.

dbarbari@projo.com