Labor ire looms over GOP parley
NEW YORK -- The Republican National Convention is more than three weeks away, but an unlikely group of demonstrators has turned up to protest: off-duty police officers and firefighters agitating for a new labor contract.
A bitter labor dispute involving public safety unions could further cloud a convention facing security concerns.
Delegates will arrive amid new warnings that terrorists have plotted to strike the New York Stock Exchange and other sites in Manhattan. But union officials say the heightened alert hasn't discouraged plans for off-duty protests.
''There's a lot of unhappy firefighters out there," said Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
At the Democratic National Convention in Boston, last-minute contract settlements ended picket lines by police and firefighter unions. Much of the rhetoric -- laced with references to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- suggests there's little hope for a similar outcome.
Cassidy dismissed the city's offer of a 5-percent wage increase over three years to police and firefighters as ''an insult to the heroes of Sept. 11."
Bloomberg also has taken a hard line, insisting the city can't afford a higher raise and accusing union officers of ''trying to intimidate the city."
Union members plan to skip a massive organized labor rally outside the convention Sept. 1 protesting President Bush's economic policies. Their strategy calls for informational picketing by off-duty officers and firefighters at delegation gatherings in other locations.
Police have been working without a contract since July 31, 2002; firefighters since May 31, 2002. 