Sit down to bargain
When the Brownsville Area School District teachers a few months ago waged a strike against the district, the public could sympathize with both sides. Teachers had taken concessions, had worked for more than a year without a contract and felt the board turned a deaf ear to their concerns about conditions in the classrooms that affected students.
The board, on the other hand, believed that it was acting in the best interest of taxpayers by hiring outside negotiators to look after their interests.
When the teachers finally proposed to the board that this was a local issue that should be settle by district teachers (not a powerful union) and board members (not hired guns) a meeting was held. Almost overnight a contract was reached.
The Fayette County Commissioners and the Service Employees International Union Local 668 could learn a lesson from the Brownsville negotiations.
On Thursday some of the union members staged an informational picket along Main Street to get their message out.
While their complaints include low wages and a suspicion that payroll deductions for health care coverage might be in their future, the resounding theme was that the commissioners will not sit down at the table and negotiate.
Instead a law firm hired by Select HR, the county’s latest personnel consultant, is doing the bargaining.
These parties have come late to the table and most likely are not aware of the underlying issues.
Workers in some offices (including those who report directly to the commissioners) are portrayed as earning far more than workers in offices whose political bosses are not favored by the commissioners.
The union’s sharpest criticism was directed at Commissioners Cavanagh and Nehls, which prompted them to turn on Commissioner Vicites, who then launched a round of his own verbal weaponry. None of this is helpful in resolving a contract.
Both sides should consider shedding personalities, name-calling and blame-placing, and negotiate in good faith. There’s nothing to keep the three commissioners from meeting directly with union members to work this out.