Mayor and Council:

At a virtual meeting of the Portsmouth City Council held on September 22, 2020, the council as then constituted adopted the linked resolution, 20-228-Resolution, by a vote of 7-0. That resolution laid out a framework within which our city would develop the policies and procedures for establishing collective bargaining agreements with city employees.

Four members of the current council — Mayor Shannon Glover and CMs Paul Battle, Lisa Lucas-Burke, and William Moody — comprised a majority of the seven. My reading of that document led me to conclude that the city was committed to implementing collective bargaining when the enabling legislation passed by the General Assembly went into effect in May of this year. Although during council deliberations on the earlier resolution, I urged in public comments that they take additional time to consider the experiences of other localities that had entered into such arrangements and examine the costs and benefits of doing so, council chose to adopt language that appeared to make this a settled question. The concluding paragraph of the resolution states, “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the City Attorney and City Manager shall convene a workgroup, [sic] consisting of subject matter experts from legal, human resources and labor to develop collective bargaining procedures for local public sector employees in Portsmouth and City Council shall promulgate changes in the Code of the City of Portsmouth no later than December 2020.” (For reasons not discussed in any public meeting of which I am aware, council did not promulgate the aforementioned code changes by their self-imposed deadline.)

On the contrary, in a work session two weeks ago, council approved in principle a complete reversal of the earlier statement of intent. This Tuesday council is due to consider a drastically revamped resolution relating to collective bargaining, 21-248a-Resolution. Unlike its predecessor, which appeared to embrace the prospects of give-and-take negotiations between the city and its non-managerial workers, this one flatly rejects any change from the status quo. It asserts unequivocally that “the City of Portsmouth will not recognize any labor union or other employee association as a bargaining agent of any public officers or employees and will not collectively bargain or enter into any collective bargaining contract with any such union or association or its agents with respect to any matter relating to them or their employment or service.”

Although the findings of the collective bargaining work group, which were presented formally to council and the public two weeks ago, indicate that implementation of collective bargaining will be costly to the city, using that as justification to unilaterally terminate discussion of the matter is wrongheaded. It breaks faith with city employees, undermines efforts to operate transparently, and is deleterious to morale. Rather than abandoning the idea of collective bargaining, the city needs to dig deeper to find ways to implement it in an efficient and cost-effective manner. I believe that some localities in this country must have found “the sweet spot”, so we should seek them out and learn from their examples.

In summation, I ask you to vote against agenda item 21-248a and continue to work toward establishing a viable collective bargaining framework.

Yours truly,
Mark Geduldig-Yatrofsky