Four unions challenge pay cuts, benefit co-pays in Menard austerity plan

By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — Lawyers representing four public employees unions will be back in Superior Court Monday seeking an injunction to block the city from cutting wages and health benefits as part of an emergency $3.6 million deficit elimination plan.

Preliminary complaints were filed in Superior Court yesterday on behalf of police, fire and other municipal workers during a private conference with Judge Richard Israel, a retired member of the judiciary, said Gary Gentile, legal counsel for Local 404 of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.
Israel was filling in for Judge Mark Pfeiffer, who was originally scheduled to meet with the lawyers yesterday but was unable to do so, according to City Solicitor Robert Iuliano. Pfeiffer wants the lawyers back in court on Monday, said Iuliano, but since he is unfamiliar with the complaints, it’s unclear whether the session will be another preliminary conference or a full-blown hearing.
The labor unions pressing their bid for an injunction to block the deficit elimination plan also include Local 670 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Local 3851 Professional and Technical Employees, both units of Council 94. They represent over 115 clerks, secretaries, laborers and high-skill workers throughout city government.
One surprise in the latest developments was the entry into the legal fray of Local 732 of the International Association of Firefighters. The union representing the city’s firefighters had previously said it would not become a party to court action to block the cuts, but Fire Lt. Steven Reilly said Friday the bargaining unit had changed its mind after further consultations with its legal counsel, Edward C. Roy Jr.
Lawyers representing the unions, as well as Iuliano, met in chambers with Israel for about 20 minutes. Although union leaders have largely been arguing that the city has illegally cut their wages and benefits without collective bargaining, Gentile said in a telephone interview that the issues involved are “more complicated than that.” He declined to elaborate, saying he will do so in court.
With so many unions arguing what is essentially the same complaint, however, Gentile said that it seems inevitable that the judge who hears the case will eventually consolidate them into a single action.
“There’s three different cases by three different lawyers on behalf of three different unions,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever hears it wants to make it one complaint.”
Crafted by Mayor Susan D. Menard, the plan includes a blanket 5 percent pay cut and a mandate for city workers to begin paying 15 percent of their annual health insurance premium. The cuts, including rollbacks in other benefits, took effect Thursday after the City Council voted them into law. Without them, the city is facing bankruptcy and massive layoffs, Menard says.
In what seemed like an effort to head off the stampede to court, Menard’s administration attempted to extend an olive branch to the four unions earlier this week, inviting them to resume negotiating. But it was apparently too late.
“Local 732 is proceeding in a legal manner, unlike the city, which is proceeding in an illegal manner,” said Reilly.
Defending the city’s actions, Iuliano said Friday that the city never intended to alienate the unions or adopt a plan in violation of any law. More than anything else, time — or the lack of it — was a factor in the mayor’s decision to draft a plan in anticipation of the loss of $3.6 million in general revenue sharing from the state. It’s a worst-case scenario that the city must prepare for, given that Gov. Carcieri has proposed his own plan to cut the state deficit by slashing some $55 million in general revenue sharing for cities and towns.
Iuliano made no predictions about whether the court will eventually grant the unions’ petitions for an injunction to block the cuts. But if it is granted, he said, it will eventually be vacated in Bankruptcy Court because — barring an infusion of cash from an as-yet unknown source — the city will soon go broke.
“Either they’ll get the temporary restraining order or they won’t,” he said. “My opinion is if they get the order we’ll be bankrupt and they’ll vacate the order. We’ve got to come to terms with the unions somehow.”
While the unions press for a freeze on the rollbacks in court, Menard is putting pressure on the School Committee to spread them even further across the ranks of city workers — to the Woonsocket Teachers Guild. Teachers have already agreed to defer previously promised pay hikes, but the School Department is still running a deficit of at least $1 million above and beyond the city’s shortfall.
In a letter to the School Committee this week, however, Menard says teachers, like city workers, should begin picking up 15 percent of the cost of their annual health insurance premiums. Without such measures, Menard said teachers and other city workers run the risk of payless work days by the end of March.
“I know the teacher’s union insists that their contract including benefits cannot be legally altered,” Menard wrote. “However, without taking significant actions that violate contract provisions, simply stated, the city will most certainly run out of money and no one, including school employees, will receive pay checks.
“In addition, the city’s bills will not be paid,” the mayor stated, “and most certainly there will be a drastic reduction in our credit rating which would affect our ability to sell $65 million in temporary financing for the Middle School Project in April and permanent bonds in the amount of $74 million for the project in November.”
The situation is “dire” and requires “immediate attention,” Menard wrote, putting the warning in bold type.
Menard said the mandatory co-pay, along with measures such as cuts in wages and “temporary adjustments to benefits,” are among the rollbacks that should be considered.