back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
There are two ways of doing things at City Hall -- the right way and the way they usually get done. And, popular opinion to the contrary, the former actually takes place once in a while in Niagara Falls. Take the case of the snowboarding competition slated for May 11 at E. Dent Lackey Plaza.
Weeks after Mayor Irene Elia's administration rejected the proposed snowboarding competition, the City Council's insistence on hearing out the event's sponsor led to Niagara Falls landing an event that could draw more people downtown in one day than the late, unlamented Festival of Lights brought in six weeks.
That's the way city government is supposed to work -- educated, or at least informed, opinions steering the process for the common good. The council deserves credit for forcing the issue, as does the mayor for reversing the administration's mystifying initial stance.
Unfortunately, things rarely seem to go that way around here. Take the current flap over city employees' self-insured health plan.
Apparently forgetting the meaning of "collective bargaining," the city is trying to unilaterally jack the employees' share up by almost 600 percent for those receiving family coverage. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the city's employees are far less than happy. Grievances are being filed, lawsuits discussed and ill will generally abounds.
That's nothing new -- relations between the city and its unions have long added another Middle Eastern touch to Niagara Falls' Beirut-esque flavor.
But for some reason, City Hall suddenly seems especially eager for a fight. On the heels of the desired increase in employee contributions, Elia last week repeated her request to hire Roemer, Wallens and Minneax, an Albany law firm, to work on labor-relations issues. That attempt comes less than two months after the council voted against hiring the firm decried by city workers as union-busters for a simple reason -- the city doesn't have the money budgeted.
Whatever the merits of both issues, they're overwhelmed by the administration's heavy-handed approach. While many elected officials fantasize about the sort of power Elia is attempting to wield, the simple fact is that she doesn't possess it.
No one disputes rising health-care costs, or City Hall's inability to keep up with them. But with the state-aid gravy train having ground to a halt, Elia's administration needs to build a solid working relationship with its unions, or at least establish some level of trust.
Trying to force-feed workers a whopping increase in their health-care costs while simultaneously seeking to use money that doesn't exist to hire lawyers that those same employees see as the enemy isn't a strategy of conciliation, but a battle plan.
The unions showed their understanding of the situation last fall, when they agreed to a four-year contract with no pay increases for the first two years. That acknowledgement of fiscal reality should be something to build on. Instead, Elia seems bent on squeezing them further. Former City Administrator Anthony Restaino said the city capped its contribution to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Traditional Plan for the 1996-97 budget year to try to get employees out of the plan. City Hall's claim that a similar cap on the self-insurance plan exists, an assertion hotly disputed by the unions, seems to have a similar motivation.
And maybe the city shouldn't be in the insurance business. But that's something that the city, like it or not, has to sit down and negotiate with its unions.
Elia's administration can either do that, or go to war with them. The first shots have been fired, and mercenaries hired, but there's still time to make the peace.
If, that is, she wants to do things the right way.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 5 2002 |