City Workers Union Rejects Contract

The city's largest public employees union, which ratified a new two-year contract last month, voted Friday against ratification of the same contract.

City officials said yesterday they would not recognize the second vote, taken after members of Local 195 of the Independent Public Employees Association complained of irregularities in the first tally, when workers passed the contract by 25 votes.

Friday's vote was 371-262 against the contract, which was defeated by workers at all five polling places.

"We have to go back to the negotiating table," James Cassidy, president of Local 195, said yesterday. "We're back to a stage where, if there isn't progress, a strike is a real possibility," Cassidy added.

A strike was averted June 30 when the union's bargaining committee tentatively agreed to the pact six minutes before a threatened walkout was to begin.

No More

"The membership took a vote, and they ratified the contract," City Manager James L. Sullivan said last night. "We do not intend to bargain further with the union," he said, although he added that the city might consider "reformulating" the scheduling of pay raises in the contract if doing so did not increase the size of the contract.

"They can't have two bites at the apple," Sullivan said.

Legalese

If the city refuses to bargain collectively, "then they only have one legal recourse," Sullivan said adding, "they can go to the stage labor relations board and try to convince them that the city has engaged in unfair labor practices."

Striking would be illegal, and the city would ask state administrative agencies or the courts to block a lock-out, Sullivan said.

Cassidy said he would call a meeting of the union membership to consider "potential action" if the city refused to bargain.

The union was forced to vote a second time because some city workers who are not union members but are covered by the contract were not informed of the vote and in some cases were not allowed to cast ballots, Cassidy said.

Most of the opposition to the contract came from younger union members who didn't benefit as much from the hefty longevity increases granted veteran employees in the new contract, Cassidy said.

The union president also said some workers were upset that the city manager refused to allow city buildings to be used for the second vote.

"That would have been tacit recognition of the second vote, and we were not about to do that," Sullivan said