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Cease Fire

Strong-arming. Spitting. Federal boycotts. Incendiary radio ads. The Providence firefighters’ union and Mayor Cicilline were locked in a bitter brawl over a decade-old contract dispute. The fighting has finally ended, but will this epic showdown — one of the longest labor disputes in state history — bring other local unions to their knees?

Illustration by John Ritter

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"We kind of feel like Hell's frozen over"

That was the gut reaction from Paul Doughty, president of the Providence firefighters’ union, after a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the city was announced on March 22. The agreement was approved by a strong majority of the 360 union members who voted on April 7. According to the proposal, firefighters would share in their healthcare costs for the first time and receive two years’ worth of retroactive pay raises but endure a wage freeze for the current fiscal year and the next.

Providence residents exhaled. Some envisioned the city’s iconic battle symbol: At Engine 7 on North Main Street, a sign is flipped every twenty-four hours to proclaim how many days firefighters have been without a formal contract. The days add up to nearly a decade. Every contract from mid-2001 through mid-2007 has been decided in arbitration. In March, an arbitrator ruled on contracts for the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years, deciding that union members would receive retroactive pay raises but mandated they contribute to health insurance costs for the first time.

“A good contract is when both parties walk away saying, ‘I’m not happy, but I can live with it,’ ” says Providence Fire Chief George Farrell. “During all these years without a contract, when the bell tipped in the station, the firefighters always responded professionally.”

As one of the longest labor disputes in the state’s history may finally be resolved, it has long-term implications regarding wages and health insurance for labor negotiations around the state. Since the 2001 contract expired, it’s been a nine-year saga of telenovela scenes. What started as a city bout morphed into a statewide fight that took a turn on the national stage.

Last year saw the arc of this epic drama. It was early summer and the Ocean State was ready for its close up. In June we were ripening by the dunes with a bucket of fried clams and a cold ’Gansett, primed for 100 officials from Obama’s administration to land in Providence for the seventy-seventh annual U.S. Conference of Mayors. Locals planned to wine and dine and charm the stimulus out of them. But a week before the conference, Rhode Islanders were stood up.

The Feds abstained because Local 799 threatened to picket the gathering over its contract dispute with the city. White House spokespeople said they weren’t choosing sides: Neither Biden nor Obama had ever crossed a picket line and they weren’t going to start now. Yet their decision turned a city wrestling match into a state brawl.

Given that the union has sparred with Providence Mayor David Cicilline since he took office in 2003, some speculate the mayor wanted to neutralize opposition before this year’s election. In February, Cicilline announced his intention to run for the congressional seat being vacated by Patrick Kennedy; he will continue to serve as mayor during the campaign. Union strategy has included thwarting Cicilline’s political ambitions by picketing his fundraising events, committee meetings and high-profile appearances.

“If you have the mayor on your campaign then you have the Providence firefighters on your ass,” says Doughty. In 2004, the same year Doughty was elected union president, John Edwards’ plane beat its wings while the vice presidential candidate debated landing at T.F. Green because Local 799 planned to demonstrate outside his fundraiser at the Biltmore Hotel. Edwards canceled the event and flew on to his next stop. Three years later, Hillary Clinton asked Cicilline to resign as co-chair of her Rhode Island campaign to avoid union cameos at her events. Allegedly, her campaign also urged him to settle with the firefighters so they wouldn’t haunt Clinton’s local appearances.
 
All of the city’s 450 (non-managerial) firefighters belong to Local 799. There is admitted pressure to enlist and, as one member explains, why wouldn’t he join a group that rallies for his best interests? “Clearly it was in the mayor’s interest to settle this before he launched his campaign,” says Wendy Schiller, an associate professor of political science and public policy at Brown University. “If he couldn’t get the active support of the union at least he didn’t want the active opposition. This saves him from what would have been a pro-union advantage for his opponent Bill Lynch.”

Brokering started in December when both sides learned an arbitrator would likely require firefighters to share in healthcare costs. Patrick Kennedy announced his retirement in February and Cicilline launched his Congressional run soon after. But the mayor says he wasn’t worried about Local 799 hijacking the campaign and that several years of picketing hasn’t mugged his fundraising. “People have communicated they respect my willingness to fight and to not do what was politically advantageous,” Cicilline adds. “In the past, leaders have bought votes by granting concessions. So not resolving the contract would have been the wise move politically.”