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Saturday, October 04, 2008

Great thoughts on the union and the Chester Bowl ski hill.

This is the papers view it was in yesterdays paper. This is great. www.duluthewstribune.com.

The union doesn't get itThe lifts were going to remain quiet this winter at Chester Bowl, a ski hill especially popular among children.


The lifts were going to remain quiet this winter at Chester Bowl, a ski hill especially popular among children. Massive layoffs and severe service cuts in the face of an even more massive and severe budget crisis for the city of Duluth claimed the job of the recreation specialist who coordinated ski-lift employees and volunteers, who oversaw snow making and who ran ski programs. He was let go as city officials reached out to the community for ways to pick up slack.
The grassroots Chester Bowl Improvement Club responded with cash from fundraisers and donations to hire the laid-off recreation specialist. Ski programs were back on.
A happy ending, right?


Not if you were the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 66. Union officials blustered because the club’s new employee will be doing basically the same work he had been doing for the city. Rather than hiring him, the union argued, the club should have pressured the city to maintain his position.
“He’s busting his own union,” AFSCME Chairwoman Deb Strohm said in yesterday’s News Tribune.


Only that wasn’t quite accurate. The former recreation specialist is no longer a member of any union. He’s just a guy trying to make a living to support his family.
And the city simply could no longer afford to keep him, not with economic realities dictating dramatic changes in the way business is conducted at City Hall. No amount of pressure from the Chester Bowl Improvement Club or anyone else could have changed that.
AFSCME did what its membership should expect: watch out for them and their jobs. But rather than bumping heads, the union and the city — and the rest of us, for that matter — are more likely to find solutions by putting our heads together.


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