Cleveland City Council rejects firefighters tentative union contract because it eliminated longstanding clause of termination for conviction of domestic violence, Mayor Jackson pushed rejection issue supported by Imperial Women Coalition, women activists
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
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| Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson |
The stalemate sends the two parties, the firefighters union and the city of Cleveland, back to the negotiating table.
City council has 30 days to approve a contract, tentatively.
Ongoing fighting between union leaders and the Jackson administration has stalled negotiations for a new two year union contract, also called a collective bargaining agreement, and has strained the relationship between the firefighters and management, that and a highly publicized scam of firefighters work and overtime abuse that saw several firefighters prosecuted, some suspended and demoted, and at least one terminated.
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| Cleveland Firefighters Local No.93 President Fred Szabo |
Cleveland Firefighters Local No.93 president Fred Szabo was angry and said at city council meeting Monday night that the provision revision pushed by the union that would have removed the automatic termination provision for domestic violence convictions was negotiated by union representatives and city lawyers in good faith, and voted on by union members.
"The city of Cleveland on Oct 30 endorsed and recommended this deal," said Szabo.
Szabo said that the firefighters are against domestic violence but are getting singled out, and that the mayor has it in for them.
Greater Cleveland community activists women say they applaud the mayor and city council on the issue, and for standing up on this aspect against violence against women and children.
"As women and children in Cleveland are still getting raped and murdered in large numbers and that violence sometimes is domestic violence, we appreciate the firefighters in leading the way to say no more and we congratulate Mayor Jackson and city council for internalizing the extent to which domestic violence is an ongoing problem," said community activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition. "And while we support compliance when and if the union agreement is fully reached, instead of even considering removing this necessary domestic violence termination provision from the firefighters contract in the future, we seek this provision added to all city union agreements, and we want legislation that makes it applicable to all city employees and city council members."
East side councilmen Jeff Johnson and Kevin Conwell spoke at Monday's meeting in favor of rejecting the union agreement because of the domestic violence clause at issue, with Conwell saying that "I cannot go along with this."
The domestic violence penalty clause that is causing the latest management-labor uproar, though not yet bargained in any other union agreements between the city and it's labor forces, has been in the firefighters contract for 15 years, and was negotiated under former mayor Michael R. White.
Jackson, the majority Black city's third Black mayor behind Carl Stokes in 1967 and White, a three term mayor first elected in 1989, was elected mayor in 2005, and is in the first year of a third four-year term.
Mayor Jackson is under pressure on the subject of violence against women and children from community activists, mainly Black women. They have staged diverse pickets in recent weeks, the most recent at what they called a phony have-no-money groundbreaking spearheaded by a group of money-hungry Black Mount Pleasant preachers of an unlikely memorial of 11 Black women murdered on Imperial Avenue on the city's east side by convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell.
Protesters said that the ceremony was superficial, divisive, and designed to make Cleveland shine for the Oct. 29 season opener between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the New York Nicks, a game the Cavs lost, while downplaying the fact that nothing significant is being done to minimize the high incidences of rape and murder of women and children.
In the last five years, Cleveland has become the capital of rape and or murder of women and children, at least from a public relations standpoint. This includes the Imperial Avenue Murders by Sowell on the city's east side. He was convicted of multiple counts of rape and murder in 2011 and sits on death row while his convictions are on appeal. And three young women were held captive and raped for 10 years by the late and homicidal Ariel Castro at his home on Cleveland's west side, the trio getting released in 2013.
Moreover, the unsolved killings in 2013 of three women along a stretch near East 93rd Street and Bessemer Avenue on the city's east side, continue to haunt the city.
Also in 2013, three young women, all Black, were murdered in neighboring East Cleveland, a largely Black impoverished suburb, allegedly by suspected serial killer Michael Madison, whose trial is scheduled to begin in January 2015 before Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
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