Thursday, September 17, 2009

New Britain Firefighters' Union Challenges Mayor's Pension - Courant.com

By: Don Stacom of The Courant

6 comments:

  1. Since state statutes normallly supersede any contradictory contract language, state statutes seem to trump anything the union can offer in their contract:

    Sec. 7-434a. Continuation of membership during service as elected official. Any member of the municipal employees' retirement system elected to serve as an official of the state or any political subdivision of the state during the 1988 calendar year or thereafter may elect, during the time he so serves, but no longer than ten years, to continue his membership in said system. Any such member shall continue to make contributions to said system and shall be ineligible for membership in any other state or municipal retirement system during such time.

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  2. Didn't the mayor offer to put in the difference for the payments on the pension plan, to make up for the approximately 18 months he was short of the 20 years he had put in at the Fire Department when he became mayor? If my memory serves me right, he was willing to pay it out of his own pocket.

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  3. The fact is that employees of various municipal departments ie:
    fire, police have on occasion lost
    their jobs for reasons that are less than favorable and have fought
    and maintained their pensions upon
    being discharged. Even when their
    years of service have fallen slightly short. They can use accrued sick time, vacation time etc. to attempt to make it to necessary dates regardless of reasons of discharge. I think we would be very surprised if we knew how many former employees are on the dime for pension and health benefits that didn't perform their jobs as would be expected.

    In this case Mayor Stewart has performed his public service with honor both in his capacity at the fire department and as an elected
    official, Mayor. To attempt to deny his pension is absurd.

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  4. It is absurd that certain fire officials deem it necessary to block the Mayor's pension since he has done a job in getting the fire department members to perform work.

    Sounds like sour grapes?

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  5. It appears to me that the union supports the best pay and benefits they can get for the least amount of work their members can get away with doing.

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  6. President of local 992 firefighters union Ed Preece and his close buddy Scarlet are like the "dog in the manger." They don't want the mayor or any other fire department like the mayor to have something for which they don't qualify. This is cheap, childish behavior that has become the modus operandi for Local 992. Check the minutes of the Fire Commission meeting of 9/16.

    Local 992 supports all of the Mayor's opponents and all of the ACORN?Democrat/WFP lines in the
    November Municipal election.

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