Marty Walsh is making Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham look bad. Yvonne Abraham does not like looking bad. And so, in what’s increasingly looking like a defining issue in Boston ‘s mayoral race , Abraham takes Walsh to the woodshed today over public employee union contracts.
Walsh is the union guy in the race for mayor. For better or worse, that’s the label that’s been tattooed to his forehead since he stepped off Beacon Hill, left his job with the Boston Building Trades Council, and threw in for mayor. Walsh’s union roots make him a populist in the mold of James Connolly or Mike Quill — a fact that has helped him win support among the Elizabeth Warren wing of the city’s political activists. Organized labor has provided his campaign with a steady stream of bodies and campaign cash. Outside PACs affiliated with labor — primarily the national AFL-CIO — have spent more than $881,000 in support of Walsh’s candidacy.
The full-throated, deep-pocketed support of organized labor has led to constant questions about Walsh’s loyalties. In their preliminary mayoral endorsements, both the Globe and the Herald doubted Walsh’s ability to negotiate toughly against the city’s municipal employee unions. The Globe went easier on Walsh than the Herald, but still noted that Walsh had “tied his hands in making himself the standard bearer of organized labor.” The paper noted his protestation “that he won’t be a shill for city workers,” but concluded that tough talk directed at the city teachers union didn’t make up for an apparent fear of confrontation with powerful police and firefighters unions. It’s those unions, not the hardhats Walsh used to represent, now casting a pall over his candidacy.
On Labor Day, Walsh delivered what he hoped would be a JFK-on-Catholicism speech about how he’d approach labor relations as mayor. “Let me state in the most direct and certain terms possible,” he said. “I can and I will represent all the people of this city to the utmost of my ability, with fear or favor for none and with fairness for all.”
An arbitrator’s 25-percent contract award to the police patrolmen’s union is testing that stance. Walsh is floundering as he tries to explain his opposition to the award: He believes it’s too high and wants the city and the union to return to the negotiating table. But just months before entering the mayor’s race, Walsh filed a bill that would make these kinds of arbitration decisions final. He’s now trying to say that the bill, co-written with firefighter unions, would actually discourage unions from entering arbitration. But its title — “An Act providing for binding arbitration for firefighters and police officers” — seems to say it all. So, just a week after writing that Walsh isn’t the pro-labor stereotype he’s being made out to be, Abraham lowers the boom on Walsh.
“Public safety unions know the score: Hold out long enough in negotiations and they’ll eventually end up in arbitration, a.k.a. the promised land,” Abraham writes. “Arbitrators are supposed to be grown-ups, judiciously weighing competing claims. But lately, they’ve just been splitting babies, requiring parties to meet halfway no matter how inflated the union’s demands. They’re like indulgent grandparents, merrily filling the kids up on Skittles and Laffy Taffy and then sending them home for parents to deal with the sugar mania and dental work.”
Walsh and Abraham hop on the phone and try to talk it out. He’s a charmer, calling the columnist “dear,” but he ties himself in knots trying to explain how a he could simultaneously be the guy who wants to get tough on public employee unions, and be the guy who wants to to remove cities’ ability to reject arbitration decisions. Writes Abraham:: “You insisted the legislation you filed would actually make it less attractive for unions to go to arbitration, the trip to grandma’s candyland unappealing. You had no good answer when I asked why a union would write legislation that does this. When I pushed you hard, you finally conceded the bill makes arbitration final. I know you mean it when you say labor negotiations won’t break down when you’re mayor, so there will be no need for arbitration… I want to believe you. But, given recent history, that seems a little naive. And naive isn’t very mayoral.”
There are five weeks left in the mayor’s race. And the questions aren’t going to get any easier between now and then.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Gov. Deval Patrick says he’s embarrassed by the federal government shutdown, State House News reports (via CommonWealth).
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority filed legislation to authorize a huge expansion that would increase its exhibit and meeting space by 60 percent.
Attorney General Martha Coakley urges Congress to delay implementation of a flood insurance map that could raise the rates of families and businesses on the North Shore, the Gloucester Times reports.
Coakley also rejects a bylaw passed by the town of Templeton that would have restricted the activities and movement of sex offenders, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
The Massachusetts House approves a compounding pharmacy crackdown.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Boston city councilors eye increasing their leverage over union contract negotiations; they want a veto over whether contract talks enter binding arbitration.
MARATHON BOMBING
The Washington Post reports on a woman seeking compensation from the One Fund for brain trauma injuries that did not present themselves until after the bombing. Other people with similar medical issues who did not immediately go to hospitals are also seeking assistance.
CASINOS
Who’s guarding the guards? The state gambling commission cuts ties with a former casino executive who was helping to vet casino applicants to weed out shady characters because of allegations that he may be a bit of a shady character.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows 72 percent of Americans oppose a government shutdown over Obamacare and finds the country closely divided — 47 percent opposed and 45 percent in favor — on their support for the health care reform. Rep. Joe Kennedy III plays GOP whip, and says he thinks there’s enough support among House Republicans to reopen the government — provided House leadership allows a spending bill to reach the floor.
The Globe‘s Noah Bierman looks at the shaky ground House Speaker John Boehner walks on these days, while the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both train their sights on Harry Reid.
California passes a law requiring websites to install an eraser button so that minors can delete unwanted social media posts, Governing reports.
ELECTIONS
The Globe editorial page says Walsh should join rival John Connolly in calling off the outside groups spending big bucks to boost his candidacy.
Greater Boston takes a look at the public safety positions of Boston mayoral candidates John Connolly and Marty Walsh, an issue that so far hasn’t received a lot of attention in the race.
Dorchester Reporter editor Bill Forry says Gene Rivers, who hasn’t voted in years yet dressed down Boston’s black community for not turning out in last month’s mayoral preliminary, is “a fraud and a hypocrite. Period.” He then goes on to say what he really thinks. Meanwhile, The Bay State Banner interviews activists about the mayoral race and voter turnout in minority neighborhoods. Boston magazine maps voter turnout in the preliminary, and unless you live in West Roxbury or coastal Dorchester, the result is disheartening.
Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua continues to duck a debate with rival Daniel Rivera, even after Rivera promises to do the debate in Spanish and not talk about indictments of members of the Lantigua administration, the Eagle-Tribune reports .
The Danvers town manager wants to have everyone vote at the high school to reduce costs, the Salem News reports.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Worcester is among the top 50 cities in the United States in terms of manufacturing activity, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
More than half of consumers say they have bought products because they benefit a charity but increasingly they want to know that their purchases have a made a difference, not just increased a company’s bottom line.
EDUCATION
The Lowell School Committee approves the distribution of condoms by the high school health center, the Sun reports.
First in Math, an online math program, is a hit with elementary school students in Lynn, helping them with math in school, the Item reports.
HEALTH CARE
The New York Times crunches the numbers on states passing on the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, and finds that a majority of uninsured low-income workers will still lack access to health insurance; that figure is two-thirds for poor blacks and single mothers.
TRANSPORTATION
Weymouth and Braintree officials say the state’s plan to close two of the four lanes on the Fore River Bridge during construction of a new span would be a traffic nightmare .
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A top Patrick administration officials says he’s OK with a fracking ban in Massachusetts even as the state benefits from gas “fracked” elsewhere, State House News reports (via Commonwealth). The fracking boom has the US on pace to pass Russia as the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas.
A 10,500-panel solar array in Scituate that has been delayed nearly a year past its scheduled opening is finally producing electricity and ready to go online, making the town the first community in the state to get 100 percent of its municipal power needs from wind and solar.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Police are charging 10 girls from Dracut and Pelham after they were seen on YouTube fighting each other at a Dracut park, the Sun reports.
Middleboro police raided a home in a quiet residential street where an alleged drug dealer was living with his wife and children. Police confiscated drugs, cash, five guns, and 17 pit bulls living in squalor.
MEDIA
The founder of Lavabit shut down the secure email service rather than give the FBI, which was pursuing Edward Snowden, access to customer information, the New York Times reports.
The Texas Tribunewants to raise $60,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to live stream aspects of statewide political races in 2014, the Nieman Journalism Lab reports.
ProPublica estimates its report on Tylenol’s main active ingredient, acetaminophen, cost $750,000 to produce, The Atlantic reports.
The Boston Business Journal dissects the possible fate of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.