DPW union says city
not bargaining in good faith
Tom Duggan
LAWRENCE - Members of Lawrence’s
Local 3 Firemen and Oilers Union
responded to comments by Lawrence
Personnel Director Frank Bonet and
Lawrence Mayor Mike Sullivan regarding
the union’s participation in
contract negotiations.
In last month’s Valley Patriot,
Lawrence’s Personnel Director said
it was “a disgrace” for any
union to hold the city’s students
hostage to achieve their own
“selfish demands.” (Story here)
“I can’t understand why a labor
union would use children to gain an
advantage in their demands,” Bonet
said.
The comments were in response to what
Bonet said was a city union threatening
to kill a summer jobs program for
Lawrence’s young people. A charge
that the union says is not true, claiming
that comments made at the negotiating
table were being “blown out of
proportion” by Bonet.
“When we’re behind closed
doors everything is supposed to be
private until the contract is signed by
all parties,” said union member
Bernard Hester.
“For him to go to the media and say
that stuff was against the accepted rules
of union negotiating; not to mention the
fact that it wasn’t true.”
“The meeting started off with
them saying they were going to bring back
summer programs. We just said, ‘we
think you need to look into this before
you bring on these kids, because
we’ve had people laid off and
there’s a previous case on this that
the union has won.’ It says you
can’t hire temporary help unless you
first bring back laid off
employees,” Hester said.
“It says, ‘the city agrees it
will no longer employ temporary workers
to perform bargaining work outside the
scope of the collective bargaining
agreement. All employees will perform
work in the scope of the collective
bargaining agreement.’”
Shop Stewart Denise Mailloux said she
found it “very distressing” to
read Mayor Sullivan’s quotes in the
Valley Patriot story where he said,
“For someone to think that the city
will buckle under threats of bogus
grievances and arbitrations better begin
to think about how they can assist this
city in its goals instead of taking
advantages of its children.”
“This article made our union sound
so terrible. It made us look like we
don’t care about the youth of the
city and that’s so terribly
wrong,” she said.
“Listen, we love those kids,”
Hester continued.
“I was in charge of those kids. It
was extra work that I took on myself to
work with those kids. I did their
paperwork, I was their supervisor, I met
with their counselors, I never got a
stipend like some of the other employees
in the city who get extra stipends for
doing extra wok. So, when they say we
don’t care about the city or the
kids in this city they are wrong, we care
about the kids…”
“But we also need our laid off
employees back,” Mailloux added.
“It’s not that we don’t
want to cooperate. That is so far from
the truth. It’s just that, right is
right and wrong is wrong. And the fact
that we are the bad guys here while
they’re breaking a contract that the
mayor signed, is just not right.”
“It’s not only with us
though,” Hester added.
“It’s the Foreman’s Union
and the Public Property Union.
They’re taking things away that are
in a signed contract and they just
don’t care. With the vehicle gas
allotment, Mr. Andrews (City Budget and
Finance Director) decided that he was
going to stop paying them unless they
singed a contract that says that we can
go back to a biweekly payroll. You
can’t just take away something in a
contract and then offer it back if we
give up something else in a
contract.”
Mailloux says the Local 3 union has been
without a contract for two years.
“The workforce down here has always
suffered when the city has been in a
financial crisis. Now they are going to
the media and making, what I feel, are
very unfair and untrue comments about our
union. It’s distressing how
we’re treated,” she said.
Hester said that it would have been
irresponsible not to remind the city of
previous court cases that could be used
by a laid off union member to file a
grievance.
“We know there is court case there
and an agreement is in place. We
can’t just turn our backs on our
employees and pretend it doesn’t
exist. They have families, they have
kids, and they have mortgages to pay. How
would we look if we didn’t do what
they elected us to do? They (city
officials) led us to believe that once
they raised the taxes that everyone was
coming back. Now we are hearing nobody is
coming back and there could be more
layoffs.”
“Yet, they want to give Mark Andrews
a $140,000 job. Where is that money going
to come from?” Mailloux asked.
The Firemen & Oilers Local 3 has
sixty-four members with four of them
currently laid off.
Lawrence Personnel Director Frank Bonet
said he stands by his statements that the
union was using the summer kids program
as a bargaining tool at the contract
negotiation table.
“My only hope is that we can move
the city forward and people will come
together to resolve these issues,”
Bonet concluded.
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material are
(C) copyright, Valley Patriot, Inc., 2008
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