Leaders of the city of Duluth's firefighters and basic union spent an hour on the hot seat Tuesday morning an-swering questions about whether they're helping or hindering efforts to solve the city's budget crisis.
However, the union representatives, Alan Netland, president of the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, Local 66, and Erik Simonson, president of the city's firefighters union, struck different tones at a Chamber of Commerce forum.
While Simonson said he hoped to enter the year with a different approach to working with the city, Netland re-peatedly blasted the city for not having "respectful" dialogues with the union.
"Our union is willing to negotiate all kinds of stuff," Netland said. "But it has to be mutual, respectful conversa-tions and, until that happens, not much in terms of productive things will happen."
When pressed by an audience member about why it was necessary for the city to be respectful with a union, Simonson responded by saying it was "unfortunate" last year when the firefighters union "got off on the wrong foot" with the city.
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"Our hope is that we enter into 2009 with a different approach, a different attitude," he said. "And we are able to sit down at the table and be respectful. If you're going to come up with constructive solutions, the very first thing you need to do is to be able respect one another's opinions."
Simonson said the firefighters union has had a few "very constructive" meetings with the city administration this year on how to address the pending budget shortfalls.
"We're faced with some challenges," he said. "We put forward some proposals that obviously aren't the silver bullet, but every little bit adds up to be a part of the solution."
Netland said most of the communication between AFSCME and the city has been through attorneys in legal dis-putes, including the city's layoffs last year, which the union claims violated the contract by cutting full-time em-ployees while retaining part-time workers.
Netland also said the union will take legal action on two fronts against the city for transferring management of the Lake Superior Zoo to a nonprofit: for contracting out union jobs to nonunion members, and for offering zoo workers jobs in the city instead of to employees who had been laid off last year.
Asked if the union will be losing the battle of public opinion, or if he does his members a disservice by not being more flexible, Netland said he believed he was representing his members' interests.
"Our members are going to always insist that we have a layoff procedure that is known and is honored, and a re-call procedure that is known and is honored," he said. "If we don't do our best to make sure that happens, they're going to say, 'Why do we have this union thing?' Right?"
