Union coalition thwarts mayor

Last August, in a ninth-floor conference room on Beacon Street, about 20 leaders of Boston's city employee unions sat down for a meeting that once seemed unthinkable.

Some of the labor leaders had never met before. Many of those who did know each other viewed the men and women sitting next to them in competitive terms, since they often claw for the same public dollars.

But with none of their unions under contract and the Democratic National Convention a year away, they promised to pool their financial resources and stick together in their negotiations with Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

The unprecedented ''Unity Coalition" has stymied Menino's efforts to use a divide-and-conquer strategy to quickly settle contracts with the city's 32 collective bargaining units. The united labor front contributed to the standoff this week at the FleetCenter, where private contractors have refused to cross a picket line manned by police officers, firefighters, and other city workers.

The decisions reached at the group's weekly meetings -- from coordinated advertising and public relations to back-channel communications -- changed the nature of union politics in the city of Boston this year, the mayor and labor leaders agree. It also undermined Menino's efforts to isolate the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association as a rogue union.

''It magnified our strength enormously," said Peter Wright, who hosted the meetings at the local headquarters of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. ''The unity coalition has produced a result that has forced the mayor to deal with the workers in unison, rather than individually."

The seeds of cooperation planted at that first meeting helped defeat a project labor agreement Monday that could have kept private sector trade unions from striking. Local labor leaders continued to help each other as late as yesterday: As Menino aides worked furiously to settle a contract with the local affiliate of Service Employees International Union, SEIU leaders on the picket line were keeping members of the police union updated on their talks.

Menino acknowledged that this has been a labor year like no other in his 10-plus years as mayor, in part because of the activities of the Unity Coalition. The increased communication among unions has been complicated by the fact that the city has less money to spend on raises, he said. Twenty of the city's 32 unions still lack contracts, though 62 percent of the city workforce has deals in place.

''It's different than it has been in the past," the mayor said. ''I mean, it's like they keep checking each other -- 'what's more, let's get more.' But you know, each one of the unions is different, and we have different obligations to different unions."

Now that the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association has made its point, its leaders will show their true intentions with their next move, said US Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat. Capuano said the union's negotiations with the city have resembled the typical ''dance" to date, but it is not yet clear whether union leaders are more interested in getting a settlement or in embarrassing Menino and Senator John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

''If it's going to impact the presidential election -- and it's not at that point yet -- you have to wonder about their political agenda," said Capuano, a former mayor of Somerville. ''What do they want? Where are we in the dance? It's hard to tell."

The true test of support for the picket line could come this morning, when US marshals clear a path for Teamsters who are scheduled to deliver supplies and equipment at the FleetCenter. Menino expressed confidence that plenty of workers and supplies will get to the job site today, after a judge ruled that protesters must make way for entering vehicles.

Menino has tried to isolate the police union by settling city contracts with SEIU Local 888 and Boston Firefighters Local 718, so the patrolmen would be the only large city union without a contract.

But that's been slow going, and the fact that so many private-sector building trade union members are honoring the picket line caught convention organizers and Menino by surprise. Myles Calvey, business manager of Local 2222 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said some union leaders who are ordering workers to go to the FleetCenter are having members balk at crossing a picket line.

''Don't lose sight of this: It's one thing what the leaders say; it's another thing doing it as a member," said Calvey, whose union of Verizon workers is refusing to cross the picket line.

Menino never wanted to get to this point. Last October, he convened a meeting of local labor leaders -- many of them members of the Unity Coalition -- at the Parkman House, and said he would seek to settle all city contracts by the end of January, a full six months before the convention.

But as Menino's team made initial offers to unions, the union leaders ran the terms by fellow members of the coalition, who counseled them to push for more in terms of salary and other concessions. The information-sharing strategy prevented Menino from getting unions to settle on the cheap, and the mayor wasn't able to ink his first agreement until March. Meanwhile, the coalition was busy influencing public opinion, which is often vital in negotiations with public-employee unions, since they are forbidden by law to strike.

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.