Unions beat Slay, Slay impersonates unions
There is an old strategy in winning mindgames and influencing the course of events: if you can’t beat them, join them.
Mayor Francis G. Slay and his core strategists have come up with a new one: if you can’t beat them, become them – or, at least, try to impersonate them.
This sums up what Slay and his people – a circle usually understood to include Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford and communications specialist Richard Callow – are trying to pull off right now.
This shadow-casting is being done in attempt to turn a loss at the hands of organized labor into a triumph.
The strategy is summed up very clearly in an email that Slay sent out to City employees on Tuesday afternoon. The EYE was forwarded a copy of this document. Remarkably, it seemed to be addressed individually to the vast number of City employees who received it.
Turning organized sets of workers into atomized individuals attached only to their allegedly benevolent mayor is the ultimate strategy at work here, so give the mayor, Rainford and Callow credit for starting their attack in the addressing of the electronic envelope.
The mayor wrote:
“Earlier today, opponents successfully blocked your pay raise at the Board of Aldermen. I wanted to write to reassure you that I will not give up until you get the pay raise you were promised and deserved. While this setback makes it unlikely there will be quick approval, my staff and I will look for a way to get the pay raise approved as soon as possible. I will keep you posted on our progress.”
The “opponents” who are allegedly keeping the mayor from giving City workers a pay raise are the very unions that have been organized as collective bargaining agents to represent these workers! Shazam!
In this bizarre message, the mayor is assuming the voice of the worker’s representative – their bargaining agent, in effect – and the “opponents” he is allegedly fighting on behalf of the workers are their own unions!
Let’s get this right – the mayor is representing union workers in their bargaining for a contract with the City?
What is going on here? What really happened?
What happened is the mayor got beat at the Board of Aldermen on Tuesday. The mayor’s principal proxy in this skirmish was Alderman Stephen Gregali. He got beat by JoAnn Williams of the Carpenters’ union, Rudy Smith of the Pipefitters union, Fran Dillard of IBEW 4 and Chris Molitor of the firefighters union (not often the EYE gets a chance to side with Local 73 on much of anything; how y’all doing?).
The mayor also got beat by the aldermen who were persuaded by the union’s version of events. Aldermen Charles Quincy Troupe, Kacie Starr Triplett, Dionne Flowers and Terry Kennedy all stuck to the facts and resisted the spin that Gregali was spinning on behalf of the mayor.
We’ll get to the union’s version of past events. First, let’s focus on the unions’ demand that was honored on Tuesday – against the typical Slay/Rainford/Callow hurry-up-and-train-wreck tactics.
The unions’ demand was simple: let us bargain with the City on behalf of our members as we are legally organized and entitled to do. What’s the rush, Mr. Mayor? And why is there a rush only when the rush will benefit you?
The mayor’s proxies attempted on Tuesday to rush into play the mayor’s version of what he thinks the workers should accept as a pay plan, which includes a raise but not all of the benefits previously negotiated. It is, simply, not the agreement the unions had negotiated with Director of Personnel Richard Frank (and which the mayor later said the City can’t afford).
So the unions argued that Slay’s new surprise plan should be rejected. They argued that the Mayor’s Office does not have the authority to negotiate with the workers on behalf of the City – and certainly not with the workers on behalf of the union!
The response of Slay, Rainford and Callow was to have the mayor personally address all City workers by email, impersonating the good guy on their side, fighting against their unnamed mutual “opponents” – i.e., their own unions.
Yeah, the EYE is sure the workers will buy THAT one.
The back story, quick
Director of Personnel Richard Frank negotiates pay package with unions representing City employees, as per City Charter.
Frank makes offers consistent with what the Mayor’s Office had previously promised the unions in exchange for their support for the half-cent sales tax increase. Unions agree with Frank, after a period of negotiation.
Gregali suddenly introduces a completely different version of the pay plan. All hell breaks loose with the unions. The City can’t appease them by honoring the deal – the mayor says the money isn’t there.
Gregali wriggles out of an initial scapegoat smear (which may or may not have been a feint, intended to throw the unions off the scent). Then Richard Frank is suddenly hung out to dry.
City Counselor Patty Hageman goes so far as to argue on the record that Frank had overextended his authority in negotiating the original agreement with the unions. This argument at Frank’s expense would make better sense if it were not Hageman’s job to represent Frank!
Frank, no fool, gets his own lawyer, Chet Pleban (also no fool). Pleban demands that Hageman no longer represent Frank. Hageman says she never was representing Frank – which is news to Frank!
Therefore, no headlines
This brings us up to the mayor’s loss on Tuesday.
Is it any surprise that Gregali left the meeting last (the EYE’s spy saw him get into his car very late in the day) and immediately starting popping off on the radio that Frank should be fired?
Speaking of the media, they weren’t there for the hearing on Tuesday. No Post-Dispatch. No TV. No KMOX.
Therefore, no headlines: “Unions beat Slay, Slay tries to impersonate unions.”
No, you had to come here for that. And the EYE wasn’t there, either. But the EYE’s eyes were. And it is getting easier to get the mayor’s friends, and former friends, to talk about what the mayor is up to these days.
John Lennon once sang, “I am the walrus.”
John Lennon was not a walrus.
Now Francis Slay is trying to sing, “I am the union.”
Francis Slay is not a union. He is a union buster.
If you can’t beat them, become them.
That sounds pretty desperate, doesn’t it?
Money and votes
As Slay impersonates a union while actually behaving like a union buster, the EYE is reminded that the mayor was recently able to get his corporate benefactors to freeze a feared potential rival out of his funding.
The EYE would like to see a list of the donors who suddenly backed out of funding this potential rival, at the mayor’s request.
The EYE is willing to wager that the vast majority of these high-rollers do not live in the city and could not vote for Slay.
Slay is the city mayor favored by the county money. He is the bosses’ mayor.
Remember that line Slay peddled against Fire Chief Sherman George? “If he would have done what his boss told him to do, he would still have a job”?
That rhetoric doesn’t reflect the nuances of the City Charter. It doesn’t recognize the difference between department head and (say) janitor. It only recognizes two roles: boss and person told what to do by boss. The mayor and everybody else.
St. Louis City government was framed with more democracy and nuance than the way Slay and Rainford are running it. Is that what the people really want? Power for the mayor, not the people?
Maybe what the city needs is a mayor who represents the city – a mayor who represents the people who live in the city and work in the city, not only the people who invest in the city and party in the city.
Slay is the bosses’ mayor.
Where is the people’s mayor?