Arbitrator to settle firefighters' contract dispute

A state committee yesterday assigned a New York-based arbitrator who has worked with Major League Baseball and on emergency presidential arbitration panels to settle a dispute over the Boston firefighters' contract.

The independent arbitrator, Dana Eischen, will consider random drug and alcohol testing as part of the contract, a contentious issues whose inclusion drew protest from a statewide firefighter union official who sits on the state panel, the Joint Labor-Management Committee.

"He is ready to address his attention to this immediately," said retired Judge Samuel E. Zoll, chairman of the committee.

Other issues that will be addressed include a contract provision that allows firefighters to retire with an enhanced pension if they are injured while serving in place of a supervisor.

Robert McCarthy, president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts and a member of the committee, opposed including random drug and alcohol testing in the arbitration proceedings because he said the city had not included the issue in initial contract negotiations.

But city officials insist they have been trying to get the union to agree to testing for more than a year.

Drug testing became the flashpoint in contract talks after an August 2007 restaurant fire in West Roxbury in which two firefighters died.

Leaked autopsy reports later showed one of the firefighters had a blood-alcohol content that exceeded the legal limit for driving, and the second had traces of cocaine in his system.

"The union's efforts to try to block drug and alcohol testing on a technicality have been baseless," said John Dunlap, the city's labor relations director, calling the tactic an effort to get increased pay in exchange for submitting to testing.

Local 718 President Edward Kelly continued to lay blame for the delay in contract negotiations at the feet of Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

"Today, the JLMC cowered under the press of the Menino administration," Kelly said. "We've never been opposed to random drug and alcohol testing. We deserve to negotiate it fairly, under the collective bargaining laws."

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.