The police contract fiasco
THE BOSTON police union overplayed its hand. John Kerry, about to become the Democratic presidential nominee, misplayed his. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Governor Mitt Romney are strong new allies and, for now, winners in the public relations battle revolving around an unhappy police contract dispute.
What happens next in the showdown between Menino and the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association is unclear -- and still potentially embarrassing to Kerry and the Democratic National Committee.
If things go as planned, a speeded-up arbitration process set in motion by the Bay State's Republican governor should yield a new union contract before Democrats meet in Boston. A new contract would undercut the major rationale -- no contract -- for picketing the convention and events related to it. If police protest anyway, they are exercising free speech, says city corporation counsel Merita A. Hopkins; but they are not technically setting up a picket line that labor-friendly delegates should technically feel compelled to honor. That is the city's argument. Whether delegates buy it remains to be seen.
The Kerry campaign and Democratic Party officials are trying to present this urban labor drama as nothing more than local theater. But they can't distance themselves from the potential consequences, which are tied directly to Kerry's decision to cancel a speech before the US Conference of Mayors rather than cross an informational police picket line. When Kerry canceled the speech, Thomas J. Nee, the head of the local police association, said police would not picket the FleetCenter, where delegates will gather to conduct their business; police would only picket delegate parties to embarrass Menino. The arrangement seemed to work to Kerry's benefit. But once it became less beneficial to the union's cause, Nee became less committed to it.
Although police said they wouldn't picket Kerry personally, it became clear they would picket anything else they deemed strategically vital. Then, when a state panel ordered fast-track arbitration, Nee's willingness to contain union action diminished even further. Declared Nee: "We're absolutely going to protest, now more than ever. . . And I'm telling you, they're going to be worse now than they were before."
Meanwhile, Romney, the Republican governor who is carving a higher profile on the national political scene, is being hailed as a leader for backing Menino. He stepped in to address the conference of mayors when Kerry declined, taking some sizzle from the union's victory. He echoed state Attorney General Thomas Reilly's call for the matter to go to arbitration, then took the key step toward resolution. When a state labor panel refused to order expedited arbitration, Romney fired the committee's acting chairman and appointed former Judge Samuel E. Zoll to take his place. The panel then ordered fast-track arbitration.
The saga to date underscores, once again, the lock labor has on Democrats. It illustrates Democratic Party fealty to old-fashioned images of oppressed workers and the premise that all worker demands are just. "I don't cross picket lines. I never have," Kerry declared, accepting as a starting point for argument the concept that every picket line is created equal. In this case, Boston police are unhappy about a proposed 11.7 percent wage increase at a time when other people are happy to have a job.
Clearly, Democrats like Kerry believe the votes labor can deliver are worth any bad publicity. From the perspective of immediate candidate self-interest, that conclusion is probably correct. But privately, even loyal Democrats admit what they won't say out loud: long-standing assumptions about negotiating with public unions -- that they always yield a wage increase, that police are entitled to whatever firefighters negotiate -- lead to spiraling municipal payrolls that no one knows how to control. The candidate who makes his stand with the unions and wins their support becomes the elected official who can't say no to labor costs. If he does, he becomes, like Menino, the target of union anger.
There is merit to the counter-argument that mayors like Menino make value judgments, too, when they choose to spend taxpayer money on beautifying a city for a convention rather than paying police higher wages.
Indeed, that is the debate that should have been argued and resolved long before Democrats headed to Boston to nominate a presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, should we assume Kerry would negotiate with world leaders more warily from the Oval Office than he negotiated with Tom Nee from the campaign trail? Correction: Arizona Senator Jon Kyl's name was misspelled in Tuesday's column. Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.
