CITY TO SEEK DRUG TESTS

Attorney: Plan Involves New Or Promoted Firefighters

Assistant City Attorney Larry O'Brien says the city's contract offer to the
firefighters union on May 30 will include random drug testing for
probationary employees.

"There is a proposal that was put together by people in Human Resources,"
O'Brien said. The drug testing requirement would apply to new hires or
firefighters who have been promoted, he said. "It's not for existing
firefighters."

The probationary period is 18 months for new firefighters, and a year for
newly promoted employees, he said.

But Mayor Sue Bauman, who has steadfastly maintained it's too late in the
negotiating process to add new conditions to the firefighters' contract,
refused to confirm details on the city's offer.

"There is a drug policy, but I am not going to discuss what is included in
a bargaining proposal -- ever," she said. "What is being negotiated across
the table should not be negotiated in newspapers. Or in council chambers."

Bauman did say that a memo was being prepared for Firefighters Union Local
311 in advance of the May 30 bargaining session that lays out the
respective issues the city and union want to discuss. But she refused to
release a copy of the memo.

"(The union has) a right to see it first," she said, noting the volatility
of the issue.

Union President Joe Conway also declined to comment. "We're not going to
talk on bargaining subjects," he said.

Added Conway, "And if they're talking on it, they're violating the rules."

Calls for random drug testing have come in the wake of an investigation
implicating 13 firefighters in varying degrees of drug use.

The union's old contract with the city expired Jan. 1. What has transpired
since is a bone of contention between Bauman and council President Dorothy
Borchardt, the council's leading proponent of random drug testing.

Bauman said union representatives and the city have been talking in general
terms about the new contract -- both at the bargaining table and less
formally. And she said that "the parameters have been well understood."

"There is no offer on the table," countered Borchardt, of District 12. "We
have time to put this in."

Borchardt asked the City Attorney's Office to research whether the city can
add items for negotiation after it has made its initial offer. And the
answer, at least in legal terms, seems to be yes.

"None of the case law regarding the (city's) duty to bargain maintained
that amending an initial contract offer during contract negotiations was a
failure to meet and confer in good faith," legal intern Margaret Ball wrote
in a May 15 memo to O'Brien.

Last week Borchardt introduced a resolution to the City Council directing
the mayor to include random drug testing in the city's collective
bargaining proposal. The resolution will be the subject of a special
meeting of the council's Organizational Committee on Thursday (Room 103A,
City-County Building, 5:15 p.m.).

The resolution has also been referred to the City Attorney's Office, Public
Safety Review Board, Labor Relations and the mayor's office. All reports
are due back to the council June 6.

Borchardt said she expects that people will register to speak at the
council's June 6 meeting, but she fears that such citizen input will be for
naught if the city proceeds to make an offer to the union on May 30 that
doesn't include random drug testing.

"They're cutting out what the people in the community think," she said.

Borchardt said everyone she has talked to favors random drug testing of
firefighters.

"I am a reflection of what the community thinks," she said. "This is what
they're saying."

Borchardt said random drug testing is going to happen sooner or later.

"If we don't get it this year, we will in two years," she said. "Sue will
be running (for re-election) in two years and she can't afford to take the
stance she is now taking."

Borchardt added that she can't understand the opposition to random drug
testing.

"So what if (firefighters) have to pee in a cup? Is that a big deal?"