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There’s
Enough Blame to Go Around
The Local Unions:
Perspective from the Inside
By Bob Rhoades
Unions have been around in the employee ranks of the City of Greenville
for quite a while. Firefighters originally belonged to the
International Association of Firefighters Local in Piqua. Then
around 1952 they formed their own Local, IAFF Local 1101. During
that period of time, there was no collective bargaining or negotiations
so it mostly existed for the access it gave the members to Union
lawyers. Things started falling apart around 1970 because of the
lack of raises and some other problems. All of the firefighters
joined the union and it’s been that way ever since.
Around the same time, the collective bargain laws were passed and the
local applied to be the recognized bargaining agent for the
firefighters. Soon after, the Fraternal Order of Police followed
suit and became the recognized bargaining agent for the police
officers. Public works folks joined the Dayton Public Service
Union.
The City hired a company from Dayton to do negotiations. We had a
committee of three with the support of the rest of the union. We
spent untold hours doing research into contracts from other towns
looking for the best verbiage.
We were looked upon as trouble makers and heathens because we defended
ourselves and asked for a decent wage. At one point, the mayor
tried to have the three negotiating committee members
arrested. That fell through because we hadn’t done anything
to get arrested for. We did read the Ohio Revised Code first so
we knew what we could and couldn’t do. After three or four months
we came to an agreement as did the other unions. The one thing
that this does for the city is places the conduct of union members on
the shoulders of the union president. It should be said that we
enjoyed a very good relationship with the administrations that followed
and a mutual respect was developed and was in place when I left in
1992. There are many outside sources that have an effect on fire
and police departments that neither can do much about. These are
usually in the form of mandates from a higher level of government which
are usually necessary but cause as much burden on the budget as
anything else. Here’s an example:
For years, we tried to negotiate into the contract, the ability to live
in Greenville Township or a certain radius from the city. The
City steadfastly refused. This was an item that was a big deal
and would have cost the city no money. So one year, the union got
up a petition, got enough signatures and put a referendum on the ballot
on the issue of residency. The people voted it in.
Employees could now live within a 10 mile radius of Greenville.
If the city had negotiated it into the contract, they would have at
least had control over the distance. A couple years after that,
the state passed a law saying all could live in the next county.
Many cities lost control of an issue they could have negotiated and the
state law may never have happened.
One other thing should be stated. The unions have always
negotiated their own contracts. The city has always hired someone
to negotiate for them. This service has always cost the city at
least $100,000 and probably more now. If there are 100
employees working for the city, a $1000 dollar raise could be offered
before anything else and everyone would be happy. So the city is
paying an outside source $100,000 to tell it’s employees what they are
going to get or not get. Either way you cut it, that money leaves
Greenville and doesn’t come back.
The labor contracts in the City of Greenville have been in force since
the early 70’s. There have been few problems. It has gone
to binding arbitration once. The system works, perhaps the
Governor shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. City government isn’t
like state government. Most of the time local people know what is
going on locally. At the state level, it becomes very obvious
that few people know what is going on and it’s on both sides.
Union stewards at the state level have made it their life’s work
staying away from their desks on “union business” with no
accountability to the state. That’s a problem.
Unknowing bosses create problems by not reading union contracts.
People are assigned to work out of their job classifications because
DAS can’t get someone hired for the position and that becomes a
grievance issue and it could easily be prevented. The time and
money that is wasted is astronomical. Perhaps it is good
that Gov. Kasich is opening this can of worms. He may find out
what some of the real problems are and if he’s any kind of a man he’ll
stop, admit the problems and then take steps to fix them.
There is enough blame to go around.
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