A win for Wu
Administration touts decisions by labor board on vax cases
Boston is declaring victory in the fight over collective bargaining issues over vaccinations after the state Department of Labor Relations largely sided with Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration in continuing to dismiss complaints.
The state’s DLR threw out the main issues in the complaint from the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation after making a similar ruling last week with the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 718.
DLR investigator Gail Sorokoff concluded that the city was able to go ahead with implementing a vaccine mandate without bargaining it beforehand.
Of the three assertions at issue in the complaint — that the city hadn’t bargained “in good faith,” that it had “coerced” employees and that it had violated existing agreements — the DLR threw out the first two and some of the complaints in the third while siding with the unions on another.
“I conclude that the City’s decision to require bargaining unit members to either receive the COVID-19 vaccination by August 30, 2021 or be tested weekly is a core governmental decision,” Sorokoff wrote. “The City was acting to keep its employees and the public safe from a pandemic.”
Further, in terms of removing the option to test rather than get the vaccine, the investigator wrote, “there is no probable cause to believe that the City repudiated the MOA by removing the testing option.”
The administration says it sees this as a vindication that “affirms the central role of city governments in protecting public health and safety.”
“The city won,” said a senior Wu staffer made available by the administration to give its side of the story on background.
The ruling — and the situation at large — isn’t quite so clear cut.
Both of the DLR rulings said there’s “probable cause to believe that violations of the Law occurred,” in that the city appears to have violated previous agreements with the union by removing offered testing sites.
President of the Superior Officers Federation Jeanne Carroll said “To allow employers the ability to ignore binding labor agreements so blatantly is an attack on any unionized worker. We urge the Wu administration to step up and do the right thing. As we have said from day one, it’s time to put politics aside and put public safety first.”
The firefighters have appealed the dismissal of the counts in a separate complaint, and have said they still expect to have success there. The DLR hasn’t yet ruled on a parallel complaint from the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society.
The unions have had more success in court, where two judges have said they had a leg to stand on in terms of labor relations. Wu currently isn’t able to enforce this policy because an appeals court judge has slapped the city with a restraining order, siding with the unions.
A previous lower-court judge had sided with the city, saying that he wasn’t going to enjoin the anti-coronavirus efforts during the thenongoing omicron spike, but that the unions’ argument likely holds some water.
The city has appealed to the full panel of the appeals court.
This all comes from Wu’s decision to override previous agreements to tighten the employee vaccine mandate as omicron surged in late December. The policy ultimately never has been enforced.