I am absolutely disgusted with Gordon Baird and his incessant slamming of unions (just police and fire, slamming the school could
result in less cocktail party invitations). Where does this cake-eater get off blaming the selfless people that have chosen a profession to protect and serve.
Sure the police were some of the highest earners last year due to the on-going CSO. They put in the hours. Also, I believe they have a 4 hour min not 8 as
Gordon stated. Maybe we need to look at that when it comes to completing the CSO but that is not the topic of his editorial. Instead he slams the very people
tasked with his safety on trying to earn a living wage in order to live in the same city he calls home. I wonder how he sleeps at night complaining about
working class people while he worries little about his next paycheck or anything else for that matter. Have you no shame Gordon Baird or are you so self
absorbed you can't see past your own wallet. The city is in crisis. The city is facing budget constraints. Many US cities are. However, a person of your
stature "fighting the light" and shitting those who dedicate their lives to public safety makes you look like a TOTAL SCHMUCK. Contribute!
City unions' push has come to shove
Fishtown Local
Good day. This is your wake-up call, Gloucester.
You asked us at the front desk when you checked in to give you a call when it was time to come to the aid of our beloved city. This is the time, folks.
We are at an impasse that cannot be broken until the public - you and I - raise our voices and the pressure until our municipal unions realize they must compromise for the town to carry on. The heady days of policemen talking home $180,000 a year have been great, really, and there was a time the trough was deep enough that it appeared not to matter.
But now it does. And so does the bottomless punch bowl of overtime, sparked by union minimum manning requirements, details and other built-in budget busters. The funny bunny budgets of the past several years have masked the true effects of the frills - plus municipal union contracts that Mr. Tobey saddled us with several elections ago. But are they getting real enough for you yet? The water and sewer bills are a bombshell from those contracts - and there are more to come.
When Mr. Scott Memhard raises the specter of a fishing industry with no ice company in town, he is giving you The Writing On The Wall. The scalding rise in water rates - nearly 10 times the rate of his New Bedford counterparts - has Cape Pond Ice teetering on survival conditions.
Make no mistake, it is a tax levied to pay the bills and keeo our city afloat because of the union contracts - to pay those top 25 Gloucester earners their hundreds of thousands of dollars in details and to keep up with the fire overtime accounts. It no longer comes down to whether the cops and firefighters are good guys or do they work hard. Of course they do, of course they are, but we still can't afford it. The union negotiators did too good a job of getting the city over a barrel when they forged these contracts at the end of the 1990s but, like an alligator with his teeth embedded, they don't plan to ever let go, no matter what the condition of the victim.
Do they care if it's their contracts or the schools? Apparently not, as we've seen those concerns fall by the wayside. Will they care if Cape Pond Ice is driven under by the water taxes levied to pay those contracts? Not at all. If the boats leave the harbor to a harbor with cheaper ice or any ice? That's their problem, they seem to think
No. it's your problem, our problem.
Right now, there is no movement possible. We are saddled with these deals even though the contracts have expired. But no one is budging. Fire stations are closing but what does the union think?
"I don't consider her (Kirk) to be a champion of fire protection," said union VP Phil Bouchie.
One might wonder if this is the pot calling the kettle black? Mr. Bouchie went on to criticize the response time to rescue the injured Rockport boaters in last Monday's paper, saying the closing of Bay View fire station cost rescuers precious minutes and left the department short staffed. Well, why does he think the station was closed? Do the unions really see no connection between their stance and the situation on the ground? And when it gets even worse, will they still see no connection?
But here's a bigger question: do you - the voters, the citizens, the neighbors, the friends, the peer pressure group called the people of Gloucester - see the connection? Will we ride this puppy all the way down until the city is a shell, but everyone in town can watch the Super Bowl when they want?
We are heading to a point where the "city" will offer almost no services and your taxes will go just to keep the bureaucracy alive that runs itself and very little else. Then we will be The Soviet Union from the old days, where the municipal services become the ruling parties, untouchable by the citizens, unanswerable to elected government, everyone too afraid to speak out against them for fear of retribution. Now there's a future to look forward to.
So where do we go from here? How do we change those eight-hour minimums on the police details whether they work them or not? Why are these calls makeable only by the union? What if the city wants to compromise to four-hour minimums like the other towns - or no minimums? Or will these guys push it until it forces the city to civilian details?
Compromise does not seem to be part of their modus operandi. Their thinking was forged in the glory days of the '80s and '90s, and they are locked into it for good. But something's got to give. A year ago, I asked whether they could ever compromise or would ride this right into a confrontation where the city went into receivership just to escape the contracts. Fire union people called me to say how out of line I was, and to come tour the station. But I didn't see one wisp then of them modifying their intentions. I have never doubted how hard either union works but when will the Irresistible Force of the Unions realize it has met The Unmovable Object of Not Enough Money?
Well, they won't realize it until the public raises their voice.
What are the options? A referendum? A ballot measure? I ask the mayor and the council for leadership. How can the citizenry break this impasse? Tell us what to do so we don't have to tax the fishing industry right out of here.
Do you want us to protest, whine, lobby, write letters, demonstrate, picket meetings or just shut up and hold our breath? Citizens want to help but tell us what to do to influence the situation.
The paradigm has changed, as it has so many times in the past 50 years. Conditions that led to those contracts are no longer the state of affairs.
I especially ask Council President Bruce Tobey for a solution. Since he provided the leadership to get us into these contracts, perhaps he could provide the leadership to get us out of these contracts. The ship ain't sinking yet, but the water is getting close to the rail.
Tell us, oh leaders, what can the citizens do to help?
><p>
Gloucester resident Gordon Baird is founder of Billboard's Musician Magazine and the West End Theater, and is producer of the "Gloucester Chicken Shack" TV show.
