Follow-Up

Going on strike

by Kristen Lombardi

It's not as if we couldn't see this coming. For weeks now, an increasingly fierce battle has been brewing at Family Services Association of Greater Boston (FSGB), where 33 social workers have been gearing up to walk off the job this month (see "Mental Hell," News and Features, August 25).

Last Friday, after threatening to strike since July, FSGB workers made it official, informing their boss that they'd halt work in 10 days. Look for the action to kick off bright and early September 19, when the workers, their clients, and their supporters are set to picket outside the Jamaica Plain agency.

The turning point finally came when FSGB declared an impasse in negotiations on August 29 and began carrying out its contract proposals -- the very ones in contention. Those proposals would create arbitrary productivity standards, mandate that employees work weekends, and take back their most prized perk: the seniority raise. "It's hard to compromise when one side puts their plans into effect," says Brian Wilder of Service Employees International Union Local 285, which represents the workers.

For employees, the impasse marks the latest in a list of what they call "classic union-busting" actions led by FSGB director Randal Rucker. For one, they charge, Rucker put forth plans that were bound to be unacceptable. Then he said all who went on strike would be permanently replaced. Finally, he went ahead and implemented his proposals anyway.

Workers are so convinced of Rucker's anti-labor ways that they have complained to the National Labor Relations Board, charging his agency with a "failure to bargain in good faith."

But to hear Rucker tell it, these workers have it good. The agency offers four weeks of vacation and a 23-day paid sabbatical. Even without the seniority raise, he says, FSGB offers a 3.5 percent annual salary increase, as well as perks like a $1000 training stipend. "We hope employees evaluate the competitive salary and benefits and decide that a strike is not productive," he says.

That probably won't happen, though. Resolved to fight, workers have sounded the alarm and are drumming up support among local pols like city councilors Francis "Mickey" Roache and Maura Hennigan. They've even put the word out to potential scabs, appealing to those social workers who contract with FSGB not to cross the picket line.

"We're spreading the word," Wilder says. "Union-busting only works when no one knows it's happening."