War of attrition Although providence firefighters remain upset about their lengthy contract dispute, cicilline appears to hold the stronger hand BY JOHN ZORABEDIAN

Dan Rinaldi has just returned to Providence’s public safety complex after a busy morning, fighting fires at an auto shop and a construction site for a new home. He is exhausted and hungry, and sweat has soaked through the blue polo shirt and pants he wore under his protective gear. Although Rinaldi and his fellow Providence firefighters feel like they have been taking a beating, the discomfort isn’t from the physical strains or psychological tolls of the job. Rather, it’s the bitter and sometimes ugly contract dispute with City Hall that has dragged on for nearly 4-1/2 years.

The firefighters union’s last contract expired on June 30, 2001, during the reign of now-jailed former mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. During the administrations of Cianci and Joseph R. Paolino Jr., the city’s unions were treated well, even lavishly, with features — like pensions for retired firefighters adjusted for cost of living at six percent annually — that Mayor David N. Cicilline calls out of touch with reality. Cicilline’s administration has already settled restructured contracts with seven other city unions, which include new employee contributions for health-care and other provisions to reduce the city’s costs. The mayor has targeted fundamental changes in what the city provides to its unions that are fair, he says, to both taxpayers and employees.

Even some union-friendly politicians concede that the pension plan awarded to the firefighters in the early ’90s was overly burdensome. But in the three years since Cicilline campaigned with a promise to settle their contract within 30 days of assuming office, the firefighters have grown increasingly disaffected with a mayor whom they once viewed with high hopes. The membership of their union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 799, has voted down possible contracts three times, in late 2001, in early 2002, and then again in November, since the last contract expired. Not surprisingly, with the most recent proposal having failed by a margin of just six votes, 195 to 189, critics blame union leaders for failing to bring the membership around.

Working under the terms of the expired contract, the average Providence firefighter makes better than $45,000 a year, plus overtime, while also receiving full health-care coverage and a pension plan to offer security into retirement. At the same time, the cost to taxpayers is becoming prohibitive — each of the more than 440 firefighters cost the city about $101,000 each year — and Providence has raised its property taxes for each of the past three years, with residents increasingly weary of the burden. And although firefighters generally enjoy a rarefied public reputation as self-sacrificing heroes, municipal unions do not always get the benefit of the doubt.

In these circumstances, the firefighters feel betrayed, disrespected, and demoralized. Hand-painted A-frames stationed outside the city’s firehouses, which offer daily updates on the amount of time passed since their last contract expired, express their frustration. Sometimes, the dissatisfaction manifests in direct confrontations with Cicilline, and the firefighters sought to embarrass the mayor at several events last year. In one instance, their promise to picket led Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards to withdraw from an event, and firefighters confronted the mayor at a fundraiser with possible presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in May. In April, firefighters rushed the mayor’s car outside a Smith Hill event, reportedly scratching and spitting upon the vehicle. The firefighters themselves have been subject to a court-ordered injunction for an alleged 2003 "sickout" that would have constituted an illegal job action.

Given the duration and bitterness of the dispute, the two sides have become ever-more entrenched and unwilling to compromise. "Both sides have staked their reputations on not giving in," says labor historian Scott Molloy, a professor at the University of Rhode Island. "Whoever gives in is going to be labeled a sell-out by somebody." Meanwhile, the public and the media are less sympathetic to unions than in decades past, Molloy says, when substantially more private-sector workers had union representation.

Embattled and lacking significant outside support, the firefighters cling to the remnants of a friendlier political and economic climate. "We’re the pawns in this big chess game," says firefighter Mike Tocco. "Pawns only move forward and back, but I just don’t want to lose what we’ve got."

After the firefighters’ November 4 rejection of the latest contract offer, the one thing that Cicilline and the union agree upon is that bilateral negotiations are dead, and that arbitration is the only way forward. Whatever the final outcome, the firefighters may be forced to undergo major changes in their benefits, pensions, and staffing. Union activists may well try their best to remain an irritant to Cicilline during his forthcoming reelection campaign. The mayor, however, no slouch compared to Cianci when it comes to remaining steadily upbeat and consistently on-message, can be expected to trumpet his delivery of more taxpayer-friendly municipal contracts.

WHY CAN’T THEY GET ALONG?

Both the union and Cicilline are convinced that contract talks repeatedly failed because the other side was unwilling to negotiate in good faith. Paul Doughty, president of Local 799, says the mayor’s chief negotiator, chief of administration John Simmons, wanted to fit benefits into a "cookie-cutter" that, while accepted by other city unions, was unsuited to the particular needs of firefighters, who put themselves in harm’s way and need comprehensive health coverage. The firefighters call Simmons a "union-buster," saying their tensions with him go back to the administration chief’s tenure during Paolino’s administration. They also take umbrage at his respective six percent and eight percent raises in March and September, bringing his salary to $188,000 (an amount defended by the lower-paid Cicilline, who says Simmons would make far more in the private sector). Doughty says the raises are "almost like a bounty," for breaking the backs of city unions.

For the mayor’s part, the obstacle was the firefighters union’s unwillingness to concede what other unions did — that the city can no longer afford to pay what it had previously promised to its workers in salaries, benefits, and pensions. "The real issue here is the unwillingness to embrace changes in the contract, fundamental, 21st century changes in the contract," Cicilline says. "We have successfully completed negotiations with seven of our unions. All of those ensured that we restored some measure of flexibility, provided for the sharing of health-care costs for the first time in each of those contracts, and made them affordable and fair to the people they cover."

Cicilline concedes that he could not uphold his campaign promise to settle the contract in his first 30 days in office, a major sore point for the union, but he says the fault does not lie with him. "I don’t have the ability to conclude a contract unilaterally, by myself," he says. "I’ve been pretty disappointed with the way the union leadership has addressed this long-standing dispute."

Simmons points to the backlog of issues, including a dispute over cost of living adjustments (COLA) in the firefighters pension going back to the 1992-93 contract, which, at six percent compounded annually, attracted the ire of the City Council (which sued to have the contract amended). With the law imposing a timeframe on negotiations, Simmons says, "The process is not workable. The process is supposed to conclude within 30 days. That’s impossible with the number of issues that are outstanding."

Critics also point to signs that Providence has a higher number of firefighters (446) than some similarly sized New England cities, including Worcester (425), Springfield (425), and Hartford (330), according to union figures. Union officials contend the local numbers are higher since they include EMTs.

Doughty, Local 799’s president since November 2004 and the union’s third president in the last four years, says the firefighters were essentially a "guinea pig" for the new administration after their last contract expired. Other municipal contracts didn’t expire until 2004, and while the police union remains in arbitration with the city, all the other unions settled in the past year. One observer calls this a strategy of "divide and conquer."

Both sides have made missteps along the way. While Cicilline touts his plan to expedite and consolidate the arbitration process, handling outstanding contract years at once, he announced the plan during a June press conference without telling the union in advance. The mayor also changed his position on residency requirements for city workers, promising firefighters he was opposed to the concept before he was elected, and then pushing for residency once in office. Although it was eventually dropped as a requirement by the state legislature, the mayor’s changing stances represented another violation of trust.

City Council President John J. Lombardi, who served as mayor in the brief interim between Cianci and Cicilline, says the administration’s negotiating methods were short on tact. "I think the target was continually moved," Lombardi says. "That’s not the way to negotiate. I hope this administration didn’t see [concessions by other unions] as a sign of weakness and say, ‘Oh by the way, we want your first born and your second born.’ "

Yet the union leadership has not been able to get the firefighters to go along with any of the three tentative agreements reached between the two sides, including the recent vote when members narrowly voted down the contract, and the leadership has repeatedly changed as a result. "We have to negotiate with one set of negotiators," Cicilline says. "We can’t negotiate with the 400 individual firemen; that’s the union’s function."

Doughty responds by saying his role is not to sell the union membership on anything. "I give them the information and let them make the decision," he says.

Firefighters Dan Rinaldi and Anthony Toro say they voted to approve the latest agreement, despite their distaste for it, but it is difficult to find a single reason why members voted it down. For those nearing retirement, Rinaldi says, the major concern is whether the calculation for their pensions is based on their highest salary year or an average of the three highest salary years; younger firefighters, citing safety concerns, are more concerned about maintaining staffing levels in individual crews (having three firefighters, rather than four, on a truck means someone is left without a "buddy"). Summing up the various explanations, Rinaldi says, "Everybody is going to raise the bar to a different level in all different areas."

A perception among firefighters that their interests are not being protected is also cited as a factor, as well as the belief that a previously voted-down contract, as firefighter Mike Tocco puts it, "looked like it was taking care of certain people." Doughty says that "trust issues" contributed to the membership voting against the tentative agreements reached in 2001 and 2002. "There was a strong distrust of some of the previous union leadership," Doughty says. "I try to make sure the union is run open and honest, with no hidden agendas."

Cicilline sums up the stalemate this way: "Change is never easy, I recognize that. Asking people to contribute to health-care for the first time, or asking people to agree to restore important management rights so the department can be properly managed, or asking people to accept reforms to the pension system — those are hard things, I recognize that. But they have to be done. They have to be done so that employees can be further compensated over the long term. They have to be done because the contracts need to be affordable to the taxpayers of the city."