Jackson Free Press

April 20, 2005

Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. gave a smile when International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger signed a proposed labor agreement April 11 in City Hall. With the chambers filled with about 100 local and national firefighters, both Johnson and City Council lavished praise upon the agreement.

"This is a great act of good faith on the part of the IAFF and the city of Jackson," Johnson said. "I look forward to the long relationship we intend to have with the union."

This came as news to Brenda Scott, president of the union for state workers, who says local unions haven't fared so well under Johnson's administration.

"In the first four years I was already ticked off that he had not honored his commitments (to us)," said Scott, who describes a mayoral administration that made a point of avoiding her organization mere months after the union had helped carry Johnson to mayoral victory about eight years ago. "It doesn't take me four years to get educated, OK? So now I don't even bother with the mayor."

Scott said she and state employees approached Johnson with "a couple of hundred (union) membership cards," and a copy of an executive order signed by a former mayor giving city workers dues check-offs for union dues or contributions to the United Way. She said Johnson "came up with some lame excuse why it wasn't (valid)."

"That was a slap to us," Scott said.

Rep, Jim Evans, D-Jackson, longtime union supporter, member of the Legislative Labor Committee and avid activist for labor organizations, said Johnson had also shrugged off a campaign commitment to AFL-CIO division The Central Mississippi Building Trades Council.

"Most of the Building Trade was upset because the mayor had signed a project labor agreement with labor four years ago, and there hasn't been one man-hour put into it since then," Evans said. "Both of those organizations endorsed him unanimously (in his first campaign), but listening to what the members said, the Johnson administration has since been non-responsive and arrogant."

Johnson campaign official Derrick Johnson said Evans' sour grapes stemmed from Evans' wife and Frank Melton campaign coordinator, Sarah Evans, who used to work in the Mississippi Attorney's office.

"She left (the Mississippi Attorney's office) because she was upset that (the mayor) didn't make her city attorney," Derrick Johnson said.

But Evans' disagreements with Johnson seem to predate any city incident involving his wife. Evans has a long history of discord with Johnson, who Evans says takes credit for much of the state money Evans secures for city projects.

Labor's ire with the Johnson administration is clearly not rooted solely in the bitters of Evans, however. Scott, Evans and AFL-CIO President Robert Schafer have all thrown their support behind Democratic Mayoral candidate Frank Melton. They say Melton has offered a more welcoming voice, as well as a practical plan for more city involvement with the unions, particularly in terms of youth education.

Melton said he intends to partner with AFL-CIO training facilities to help troubled youth get training in the construction and trade industries. Financing, said Schafer, will come from the union's $17 billion pension fund. Industry leaders say the plan is particularly appealing because the construction industry is suffering a serious absence of workers under 30. Entry-level pay for experienced workers now averages $20 to $40 an hour.

Johnson, however, paints Melton as a union-buster, pointing to the 1984 de-certification of a telecommunications union at WLBT when Melton was running it.

"Frankly, I find it puzzling that the AFL-CIO would endorse Melton in the first place. I‘m the first mayor who's ever recognized a police union in the city, and I'm the first who‘s recognized a firefighter's union. This guy, the first thing he did when he got the reins at WLBT was break up the union. It's just a mystery to me why they support him," Johnson said.

Scott countered that the AFL-CIO gave its endorsement to Melton because it "did its research."

"It was the workers who filed the desertion at the station, and a majority of the workers supported it. Mr. Melton was giving the workers the authority to do what they thought was best," Scott said. "We don't have to go back 30 odd years to see what Melton did at WLBT, but we only have to go back eight years to see what Johnson promised labor then. If you let a dog bite you three times, you just gotta be crazy."

During the April 16 mayoral debate, Melton acknowledged his WLBT union situation simply: "I made a mistake," he told the audience.