Reisman: Port Chester firefighter cuts rile union giant
Think of it as a different kind of mutual aid
Port Chester’s elected officials might not have thought that a plan to eliminate eight professional firefighter jobs would mean contending with one of most powerful firefighter unions in the country, let alone the state of New York.
But that is exactly what is happening. A bit of Yonkers-style hardball is coming to Port Chester.
Barry McGoey, who heads Firefighters Local 628 in Yonkers, says his 325-member union is fully prepared to pour “tens of thousands of dollars” into a public relations campaign to restore Port Chester’s firefighter jobs — all eight of them.
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“We’re a brotherhood,” McGoey told me. “We’re probably one of the most active and vital firefighter unions there are, so we take great pride in what we do.”
And one of the things they do is aggressively protect the interests of fellow firefighters, even those outside the City of Hills.
“This is one of the smallest locals there are, only eight members,” McGoey said of the Port Chester union. “They don’t have real resources. So they basically have at their disposal all the resources and manpower of Local 628. That’s the way firefighters are.”
McGoey pulls no punches. In his view, the Port Chester firefighters are the underdog and any threat to their livelihood is a threat to firefighters everywhere. The village wants to save $800,000 and turn over its firefighting responsibilities to its volunteer contingent, but McGoey believes this is misguided and unfair.
“When times were good, the money never flowed for the municipal civil servants,” he said, “And when times are bad, everybody wants to take everything away from them.”
While that statement may be challenged, there is no question that McGoey’s union and the smaller but equally well organized Uniformed Fire Officers Association in Yonkers under John Flynn, are expert at applying political pressure in protracted labor disputes. Nobody knows this better than Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, a Democrat who is widely expected to run for Westchester county executive in 2017.
The Yonkers fire unions were aware of this possibility and skillfully exploited it to end a bitter deadlock between the city and the 130-member UFOA, which had been working without a contract for seven years.
The unions joined together to use social media, interview opportunities and TV commercials to press the UFOA's cause. Spano was held up as a phony Democrat who was more interested in giving city jobs to family members than taking care of the people charged with protecting the public’s safety.
Stating that their goal was to be “a major influence” in next year’s county executive race, they employed an anti-Spano billboard truck to follow the mayor around at public events, one of them being the annual breakfast of the county Democratic Committee.
At one point, they threatened to stage a protest at Spano’s state of the city address on March 9, but called the protest off after both sides agreed to resume talks. Two weeks later, the UFOA secured a new 10-year contract.
Suffice to say, Port Chester’s leaders are on notice.
McGoey said Local 628 was prepared to give legal advice and moral support. They’ve already participated in a demonstration, along with firefighters from other Westchester cities. This week members plan to carry petitions door to door in the village. Think of it as a different kind of mutual aid.
McGoey said his union would even go so far as to buy another billboard truck for the Port Chester firefighters.
“But we have to recognize this is Port Chester, not Yonkers,” he said. “And how I would do things are not necessarily the way things can be done in Port Chester. So we can give advice, but you have to use it as you see fit because you understand the politicians.
“You know the people. You know the voters.”
McGoey typically blamed politicians for not “being brave enough to lead by example and find the real savings for their bloated budgets.” He was particularly accusatory of the party in power, the Democrats, for abandoning unions.
“That’s why I think you’re going to see Donald Trump getting a tremendous amount of organized labor support, because you can’t depend on the Democrats anymore,” he said.
McGoey did reserve some sympathy for local elected leaders who have to struggle with the state tax cap, which limits their ability to raise revenue to pay for the ever-rising costs of health and pension benefits.
“They’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said.
His sympathy only goes so far. If the current Port Chester leadership were up for re-election today, the opposition candidates would get a record amount of campaign contributions, McGoey said.
“I’d imagine that 450 Yonkers firefighters would be sending them a personal check.”