Detroit Nursery Takeover Enjoined by Court Because of City's Failure to Communicate

"The Greening ofDetroit was slated to take over theDetroit-owned Meyers Nursery, after the Detroit City Council approved a contract for The Greening to manage the Nursery. AFSCME Council 25 and Local 542 were forced to seek a preliminary injunction against the takeover," stated Garrett. "This injunction might have been avoided, had the city followed its contractual obligations and met with the Union before executing the deal with The Greening."

"The city first signed this deal back in March," added AFSCME Local 542 President Melvin Brabson. "Even though the contract involved replacing Union work with work performed by an outside entity, in violation of the Union contract, the city never, ever came to us to talk about it. I happened to find out about it and asked for the contract, and to meet with the city to discuss the issue. The city refused to meet with the Union, until City Council held the contract so that we could meet. Even then, the city refused to discuss how to resolve the issue, but told us they were moving forward, no matter what. The Union had no other option, but to go to court."

"The Union is always the last to know," continued Garrett. "The city knows that this type of contract violates our successor clause in the contract, but tried to sneak it through instead of meeting with us. If we allow our contract to be violated, we run serious risks of not fulfilling our legal obligations to our members. By ignoring us, the city left us no choice."

Addressing the claim that AFSCME is stopping volunteer workers from planting trees inDetroit, Garrett concluded, "First, people are being paid under this Greening contract. There are several funded positions listed in the contract, which add up to more than $52 million over five years. Plus, there were employees previously laid off or otherwise removed from working in this nursery, doing what The Greening is proposing to do. The city wants its employees to take the loss of work, and being ignored, lying down. We will not do so."

The court ordered immediate arbitration of the AFSCME grievance that the Greening contract has violated the bargaining agreement.

Albert Garrett also serves as Vice President of AFSCME International. Michigan AFSCME Council 25 represents more than 90,000 public workers acrossMichigan. AFSCME International represents 1.4 million public workers nationwide. News releases issued by Michigan AFSCME Council 25 are available at http://www.miafscme.org/Releases.htm.

SOURCE Michigan AFSCME Council 25

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Copyright © 2008, NewsBlaze, Daily News

Tags: Agriculture, National, , michigan

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