"Panel OK’s firefighter drug tests, 19% raise; Arbitration ruling caps 4-year contract impasse | Mayor expects fallout in other union talks" by Andrew Ryan and Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | April 20, 2010
A labor arbitration panel has ruled that Boston firefighters must submit to random drug and alcohol testing in exchange for a 19 percent raise over four years, a significant bump that will dwarf the pay increases for other city unions.
The decision, released yesterday after a bitter four-year standoff, is largely a victory for the firefighters, who the city says will receive a wage boost that is 5 percent higher than what police unions received.
More crime coming up!
The size of the award puts Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration in a precarious position as negotiations begin this spring with the city’s 44 collective bargaining units, heightening expectations for raises....
The award, retroactive to July 1, 2006.... will cost the city an estimated $74 million, according to the Menino administration. It is $27 million more than the city had squirreled away for the contract over the last four years. Both sides are bound by the 2-1 ruling, which arrived at City Hall via fax yesterday afternoon....
Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Municipal Research Bureau, a fiscal watchdog funded by businesses and nonprofit groups, and others have urged the City Council to hold a hearing to explore the broader impact of the award on the finances of the city — which in recent weeks has proposed closing four libraries, pulling staff out of eight community centers, and laying off up to 250 employees — before voting on whether to fund the contract.
“The council is not going to gavel this through,’’ its president, Michael P. Ross, said last night. “The council will most certainly hold a hearing. We need the firefighters to understand that they are our partners in governance and that our current system of finances is unsustainable.’’
No, they just want to hold on to what they have and see how much more they can get. I would not mind so much if tax loot wasn't being wasted on corporations, banks, and "public servants" and their pensions and health plans.
Of course, no one wants single-payer health care like in France, Norway, etc, etc, etc.
In particular, Ross said, he wanted to talk to the union about health care costs, which the Menino administration has estimated will rise by $20 million next year for all city workers.
See: The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
The Massachusetts Model: Mayors Make Lawmakers Mad
No, you do not want to do that.
Now drop those pants.
The city’s 1,400 firefighters have been working without a contract since July 2006....
So we should be grateful to them for doing their jobs?
Why didn't the city hire lower-costing permanent replacement workers?
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"Arbiter boosted city fire raises; Mayor on panel says move was surprise to him" by Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff | April 21, 2010
The pay increase giving union firefighters in Boston an unparalleled fifth raise in four years was added unexpectedly by the arbiter in the closing hours of contract deliberations, according to the representative of city management on the three-member arbitration panel that heard the case.
Dana Edward Eischen, the arbiter and chairman of the three-member panel, added a 2.5 percent pay boost at the last minute that would cost the city an estimated $3.5 million next year alone, said the management representative, Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella of Leominster. The additional raise seemed to come out of nowhere Monday morning, as the panel wrapped up a weekend negotiating session at a hotel in Albany, Mazzarella said....
What, fire department threaten the arbiter with a fire at his home?
Eischen, a nationally known arbiter who represented the swing vote, suggested the arbitration award, which the panel approved 2-1, had been prematurely publicized by the administration of Mayor Thomas M. Menino. “Ethics and confidentiality’’ precluded him from discussing the matter, Eischen said....
Robert B. McCarthy, the president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts who also represented the firefighters’ union, said Monday night that he was shocked that Menino had publicized the decision before its scheduled release in early May. McCarthy did not return phone calls yesterday. The mayor’s office submitted the documents it had yesterday to the City Council, which will vote on whether to fund the contract.
Reaction on the council has been cautious. Roughly half of the 13 members responded directly yesterday to a reporter’s question about how they plan to vote. None of the councilors said outright that they would vote against funding the award, but many called for a hearing to discuss the dollar figure in the context of the city’s fiscal woes, which may close libraries and make other deep cuts.
Councilor John M. Tobin Jr. staked out the firmest position, saying that while “19 percent is a big number, especially in this economy,’’ the arbitration was binding regardless of the result. “I believe a vote against funding this contract goes against collective bargaining and it goes against the spirit of binding arbitration,’’ Tobin said. “To ask the City Council to come in the bottom of the ninth and change the rules and the process is really a violation of the process.’’
Councilor Bill Linehan agreed that 19 percent seemed high, but said that “in the past we have supported binding arbitration. If a hearing would help make the actual arbitration more transparent and understandable, then I think it could be valuable, but my tendency is to support the binding arbitration.’’
Councilor Charles C. Yancey said his position on the contract will by guided by where the city will find the money to pay the bill. “I have the utmost respect for firefighters; they risk their lives every day and they deserve to be treated with respect,’’ Yancey said. “But I think that the price tag for the full increases is high.’’
--more--"Related:
Globe Editorial: City Council must put an end to indefensible firefighter raise
Globe is against law-binding arbitration and collective bargaining, 'eh?
And rather than fight fires, sigh.....
"Firefighters muster to preserve local aid" by David Abel, Globe Staff | April 27, 2010
Firefighters from around the state rallied on Beacon Hill yesterday, lobbying lawmakers to preserve their collective bargaining agreements and maintain state aid to towns and cities, thereby sustaining the number of firefighters.
They said proposed changes in the law and cuts in state aid were a matter of “life and death.’’
You just got a huge raise.
And the hyperbole doesn't help.
At the rally, which included more than 100 firefighters, Robert B. McCarthy, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, the union that represents about 12,000 firefighters in the state, said that unless the state had used $20 million in federal stimulus money, fire departments this fiscal year would have had to lay off 121 firefighters.
“The fire service is under assault,’’ he said.
So is the TAXPAYER and from ALL SIDES as the STATE BURNS TO the GROUND!!
Hey, THERE is a FIRE FOR YOU TO PUT OUT!!!!!!!!
He also urged lawmakers to oppose changes in the law that would allow local governments more latitude in setting the terms of health plans for firefighters. He said any changes in the law should allow firefighters’ unions to engage in collective bargaining.
The plan design for health care changes would “allow municipal management to dictate the plan for municipal health insurance, dictate the cost of health insurance, and dictate all increases on the backs of active and retired municipal employees,’’ McCarthy said.
Well, you will be TREATED JUST LIKE THE REST OF US then!
Advocates for allowing municipalities to redesign health plans for their employees say it could save them $100 million.
Not like a "public servant" would want to kick in anything.
Of course, I WOULD NOT CARE if the GOVERNMENT wasn't FUNDING PROFITABLE HOLLYWOOD so they could make their movies here or loser-movers like green tech, biotech, and techtech.
Representative Paul Donato, cochairman of the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government and a lead sponsor of Plan Design, did not return calls.
Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said that allowing municipalities to change health plans is a vital way to control costs.
“The current municipal health system is broken,’’ said Beckwith. “Anyone who stands in the way of real reform is essentially arguing that taxpayers must pay more for benefits that are far too generous compared to what the private sector receives.
“The firefighters’ union and others have to recognize that they have to come to the table and agree to significant changes to save taxpayers’ money and save firefighters’ jobs,’’ Beckwith said....
They MUST NOT BE ABLE to SEE IT through the FIRES of TAXPAYER OUTRAGE!
And something I never would have considered in years past; however, what is a GOVERNMENT UNION doing BARGAINING with GOVERNMENT?!?
"Abolish municipal unions" by Frank L. McNamara Jr. | April 27, 2010
SOONER OR later, the Devil always overplays his hand. In the current crisis of public employee unions bullying cash-strapped governments, that is a good thing. Politicians and the public now see the vice-like control of the unions.
Government at all levels is in dire financial need as a result of extravagance, mismanagement, and political cowardice. Paradoxically, public employees enjoy pensions, health benefits, sick pay, and salary levels that are the envy of their private sector counterparts.
The two problems are related. (Close the libraries. Pay the police and firemen. No! Close the libraries to pay the police and firemen!)
See: State Legislooters Save Boston Libraries
The recent “Christmas in April’’ award of a four-year, 19 percent pay raise to the Boston Fire Department has served to crystallize the repressive labor union power that inheres when essential public employees are allowed to unionize and exert oligopolistic authority over their political managers. The vehicle for this tyranny is the one-sided collective bargaining agreement, negotiated between the unions and the politicians over whose incumbency the former exercise control.
The Fire Department’s pay raise package has saddled the taxpayers of Boston with a costly and unsupportable package of benefits. The ripple effects of this largesse will influence future negotiations with all other municipal employee unions, and not just in Boston.
So what to do? Answer: Level the playing field by outlawing unions for public employees.
Why? Because what will substantially improve government, public administration, and the quality of life....
In making this nakedly blasphemous suggestion, I am emboldened by the fact that public employees are already specifically excluded from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act, which gives employees in the private sector the right of self-organization. The reason: a full panoply of civil service and civil rights laws already exists in Massachusetts to protect nearly all public employees from those indignities that have historically characterized the exploitation of workers by management and triggered the rise of labor unions in the first instance....
Yes, THEY TAKE what the WORKING MAN has FOUGHT FOR and TREAT THEMSELVES WELL!!!!
Torch 'em all!
They stopped serving the people and started serving themselves long ago.
Related: School's Out Forever For Some Boston Teachers
They are ineffective and impotent anyway.
