EDITED TO ADD STATEMENT FROM UTILITY WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA
At a recent meeting, Milford City Council heard from Reggie Davis with the Utility Workers Union of America. Davis spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting and made allegations the city was intimidating staff who supported joining a public works employee union.
“Public Works employees here in Milford recently selected our union as their bargaining representative,” Davis said. “These employees work hard to deliver clean water, sanitation, wastewater services and safe streets to Milford families and businesses every day. They’ve exercised their right under state law to choose union representation for the simple reason that they would like to have a voice and a fair union contract. For our part, we wish to build a constructive relationship with Milford leaders to help make this city an even better place to live and work, just as our union has done making relationships with numerous other towns an cities across this country.”
According to Davis, city officials were resisting this attempt by using “grossly unfair treatment” against public works staff who supported unionization.
“In the few weeks since the union certification, city management has unjustly discharged one union supporter the very same day the administration learned that workers had selected UWA as their union, even though the city had just named that same employee Milford’s employee of the month,” Davis claimed. “Public Works management then terminated another union supporter and disciplined yet another. In both cases, there were dubious grounds with no reasonable pretense or just cause.”
Davis alleged that the city had continued to threaten and intimidate employees. He claimed that management had singled out hourly public works employees by announcing that the city will cancel their annual cost of living increases.
“An increase that all city employees will continue to receive,” Davis said. “And if that weren’t outrageous enough, management had the audacity to tell workers that they will lose their cost of living increases specifically because they decided to choose a union to represent them, even though state law guarantees them this right.”
After this article was released, Erin Bzymek, Communications Director of the Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, sent a correction.
“This statement represents our commitment to fight for the cost of living raise and secure this for our members, but the city has NOT made any commitment regarding a cost of living raise,” Bzymek said, refuting Davis’ comment during public comment at the council meeting. “The city has just announced public works employees will receive annual rate increases that they have earned and deserve. We will continue to fight every single retaliatory action the city has imposed.”
According to Davis, the union intended to fight what they called “abuses” of employees who supported the union.
“We have already filed labor board charges with the state over the anti-union reprisals against our members and we will be filing more charges shortly over the anti-union wage discrimination,” Davis said. “The city has just announced public works employees will receive annual rate increases that they have earned and deserve. We will continue to fight every single retaliatory action the city has imposed.”
Davis continued, claiming the citizens of Milford would support the actions of the union.
“We believe the Milford residents will agree with us that these employees deserve better and that city officials must end this retaliatory conduct,” Davis said. “Instead, start treating public works employees with the dignity and respect they deserve. We urge city administration once again to reverse its present course and instead take up our offer to build a constructive relationship. We believe this is the best way forward so that we can work together and continue to deliver quality services to the residents of the City of Milford.”
As with all public comments, council did not respond to the allegations. Because these are personnel issues, the city did not want to comment.
