Daley, Obama at odds over meeting's picket line
The Obama administration is boycotting a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Providence, R.I., this weekend to avoid crossing picket lines and taking sides in a decade-long labor dispute between the local mayor and firefighters union.
But Mayor Daley apparently has no such qualms, in part because heıs been in the same boat as Providence Mayor David Cicilline.
(John H. White/Sun-Times)
Should Mayor Daley go to the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting?
No
Yes
Not only is Daley planning to cross a picket line to attend the mayorıs meeting, but heıs also sent a message to the White House that itıs setting a "very bad precedent" by directing Vice President Joe Biden and more than 100 federal officials to stay away. Biden was supposed to be the keynote speaker.
"This entire meeting was established around the administrationıs desire to get the word out about the stimulus package," said Frank Kruesi, Chicagoıs chief Washington lobbyist. "All of that has gone one up in smoke over an informational picket with one union in the host city. This is a very bad precedent. Itıs incomprehensible. In the history of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, itıs never happened. If one union in a jurisdiction wants to put up an informational picket, administration officials will stay away. I guess theyıll be doing a lot more foreign trips and a lot fewer meetings with mayors and governors across the country." Mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard acknowledged that Daley would "rather not" cross a picket line. But he "made a commitment" and plans to honor it, she said.
"No mayor is insulated from this kind of problem," Heard said. "These issues go with the territory. . . . Heıs been through it himself." In Chicago, thousands of Chicago police officers, chanting "Daley sucks," marched around City Hall April 2 to protest their two-year wait for a new contract and Daleyıs decision to withdraw his offer of a 16.1 percent pay raise over five years amid declining city revenue. That demonstration was timed to embarrass Daley while the International Olympic Committee was making its final site visit.
The dispute between Cicilline and the Providence firefighters union is now in binding arbitration and involves issues that also have been raised in Chicago. It centers around a cost-of-living clause escalator for retiree pension benefits and Cicillineıs demand that firefighters who make no contribution toward their health insurance agree to a 15 percent co-pay.
"While this administration is taking no position on the circumstances of the dispute itself, we have always respected picket lines and administration officials will not cross this one," Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said on the White House Web site.
Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, called the boycott "another example of the administration's unqualified support for workers and organized labor."