Union leader continues fight with Essex County official over delayed contracts
by Philip Read/ The Star-Ledger
Sunday April 12, 2009, 5:00 AM
David Weiner is a prolific scribe.
The president of Communications Workers of America Local 1081 regularly writes lengthy e-mail blasts to stir up his membership in the fight with Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. over long-delayed contracts.
Now, more than 15 months since the last pacts expired, the drumbeat shows no signs of abating.
Rich Schultz/NJNPDavid Weiner, President
of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 1081 leads a group of
approximately 150 union workers into Verona Park in 2004. The protesters marched
in the home town of Essex County Executive, James Treffinger to protest his
welfare reform policies. As chief of CWA Local 1081, which represents about 650 of Essex County's 3,400-member unionized workforce, Weiner has been the most visible leader of the county's 26 unions now working under contracts that expired Dec. 31, 2007.
He has filed contractual grievances charging that CWA staffers have been "obliged" to participate as "event extras" in DiVincenzo's many press conferences, which he calls "self-serving soirees."
He has filed documents for public records to try to determine the need for the county's purchase of T-shirts and jackets bearing the county's slogan, "Putting Essex County First," and engaged his membership with "e-mail trivia contests" so they keep abreast of his union's latest run-ins. The winners -- the last contest was dubbed "the 209th" -- receive $50.
Just last Tuesday, he took to the streets in Newark with a bullhorn and led his CWA members in the lunchtime chant, "Hey Joe Dee, you're rich and rude; we don't like your attitude.
What motivates Weiner, the CWA president since 1980?
"I'm not certain," he said. "Part of it might be my unique personality. Also, I've got more experience under my belt.. I like Joe Dee. It's not personal."
As for the county executive, he insists, too, that there's friendship between the Vailsburg-raised Weiner and the North Ward-raised DiVincenzo.
"He's a union leader. I respect that," DiVincenzo said.
Still, it has been a verbal duel for months as the county executive called news conferences to announce 219 job cuts -- 68 via layoffs -- and went on to ask the county's 26 unions to forgo raises for two years and then give up four of their 14 paid holidays.
On top of that, he called for an end to overtime on weekends for sheriff's officers as well as an end to binding arbitration ahead of the arrival of a state arbitrator in talks with sheriff's officers and corrections workers.
The stance on arbitration is suspect to Joe Amato, president of PBA Local 382, which represents about 500 corrections officers.
"That is what's hard for me to understand," Amato said. "It's like we demand arbitration! ... They look at our proposal, and they say, 'We'll see you in arbitration.' They claim they're broke from the beginning."
"The way they use it, if the taxpayers complain, they get a chance to say, 'It's not me, it's arbitration.'"
Dolores Capetola, Essex County's labor counsel, disputes the assertion.
"No, not at all," she said. "We brought in experts, our consultants, our budget people, human resources... It's not as simple as, 'We don't have the money.' We explain things, produce documents."
All along, DiVincenzo has argued that money-saving initiatives, such as asking employees to forgo raises for two years, are intended to prevent even more layoffs and assist homeowners struggling to pay their property taxes in a deep recession.
"All I'm asking for is a spirit of cooperation," DiVincenzo said.
And he has defended new outlays -- such as the $1.8 million exhibit for Gibbons apes at Turtle Back Zoo to be formally unveiled in a press conference Monday -- as necessary ones largely funded via grants and without an impact on the county's debt service.
"Look at the attendance. Look at the revenue we're bringing in there," DiVincenzo said of the zoo. "People need these things to happen in our county."
But Weiner criticizes DiVincenzo's bargaining stance.
"If you want to negotiate, why do you go to the press and not to us," Weiner said. "Negotiate with the unions. Don't dictate."
And he's unhappy with what he considers DiVincenzo's drumbeat against public sector employees as the bad guys, saying it's dragging down all workers.
"Oh, you should happy to have a job," Weiner said of the reaction it fosters. "What kind of attitude is that?'
In the coming months, Weiner said, he doesn't expect to rest in his face-offs with DiVincenzo.
"He's very strong-willed and strong-headed," Weiner said. "That's okay. So am I."