The Michigan Daily-Saturday, July 15; 1978-Page5
Cleveland cops back;
other strikes still on
CLEVELAND (AP) - Striking
Cleveland police officers ended a strike
yesterday moments after a state court
judge had held the patrolmen in con-
tempt of court for refusing a court or-
der to return to their jobs.
William McNea, president of the
Cleveland Police Patrolmen's
Association, and William Callagher,
president of the Fraternal Order of
Police Lodge Eight, announced the end
of the walkout after Judge Daniel
Corrigan ordered the city and unions in-
to arbitration over the status of 13
policemen whose firings triggered the
strike.
CORRIGAN ordered that the officers
be returned to the payroll for at least
two weeks. He said that during the 14-
day period, the officers would continue
to work under suspension, meaning no
street duty assignments.
Public employees in two other major
cities were on strike yesterday.
Louisville had almost no firemen on
duty and Philadelphia was without the
services of almost 2,000 non-uniformed
workers.
The Cleveland strike began Thursday
night over the firing of 13 patrolmen by
Mayor Dennis Kucinich: The 31-year-old
mayor, who faces a recall election next
month, dismissed the men for refusing
an order to start one-man daytime foot
patrols in high-crime housing projects.
KUCINICH yesterday asked the state
for National Guard troops and any
other help it could provide. But Gov.
James Rhodes' office in Columbus said
no assistance would be offered until the
city exhausted every other possibility.
Some water and garbage workers
honored police picket lines, raising the
threat of a wider work stoppage in the
city of 700,000 persons.
Authorities said not one of the 1,500
patrolmen in the city's 2,000-member
police department reported for work on
the 11 p.m. shift. Safety Director James
Barrett said some patrolmen reported
for duty at 7 a.m. and there were a few
patrol cars on the street, but he
declined to give specifics.
THIRTY-NINE of 41 supervisory of-
ficers scheduled to work the overnight
shift were on the job, and Barrett said
they would remain on duty. He said the '
city spent a fairly quiet night.
The striking patrolmen ignored a
court order issued shortly after the
walkout began. A further hearing was
scheduled for later yesterday.
The strike by Louisville's 600 union
firemen began yesterday morning and
centered on a wage dispute. Stephan
Phelps, executive assistant to Mayor
William Stansbury, said the city was
seeking a restraining order, "and we
have National Guard troops standing
by if the firemen ignore the temporary
restraining order"
ANOTHER mayoral aide said about
30 management personnel were man-
ning about seven of the 23 fire houses in
thiscity of 400,00people.
"So the city is protected." He said
police were standing by at some of the
fire houses.
Steve Catlett, a member of the
Louisville Professional Firefighters
Union Local 345 executive committee
accused the city of stalling wage
negotiations. The firemen have not
made their demands public.
Louisville firemen have a starting
salary of $11,085 for a 56-hour week. The
city's latest offer would give a fifth-
year firefighter an increase of $1,200 a
Board has found the city guilty of unfair
labor practices in its negotiations with
the firemen.
In Philadelphia, the nation's fourth-
largest city, 19,600 blue-collar, clerical
and professional city employees non-
uniformed workers went on strike
today after union negotiators refused to
accept or reject a contract offer.
Supervisors filled in at prisons and the
city water department, but a halt was
expected in such services as trash
collection and street cleaning.
THE ISSUES are wages and layoffs.
The city was recently ordered by an ar-
bitrator to give police a nine per cent
wage bike, and said it might have to lay
off 3,500 other workers to raise the
money.
In Memphis, Tenn., where firemen
went on strike for three days starting
July 1, city negotiators reached ten-
tative agreement with firefighters
early today. A few hours earlier, the
city had announced a tentative set-
tlement with the police union.
Henry Evans, chief city ad-
ministrative officer, declined to discuss
details of either agreement. Mayor
Wyeth Chandler said Thursday night
that economic provisions tentatively
agreed to with the police were in line
with wage packages accepted earlier
by 11 other municipal unions. The city's
basic wage offer to the other unions was
a six per cent raise now and seven-and-
a-half per cent Oct. 1, 1979.
ELEVEN sanitation workers who
walked off their jobs in Cordova, Ala.,
on Monday remained off the job. The
workers had asked for a 20 per cent
salary boost and more insurance.
The status of the 34-member New
Bern, NC., police force remained in
doubt. The men walked off the job last
week following a decision by the board
of aldermen to fire the police chief, who
had backed the men's demand for a 10
per cent pay boost. The board agreed on
Thursday to reinstate the chief, but it
was not clear whether the men would
return to work unless they also receive
the higher wages they demanded. "If
you want to get anything in this world,
you have to scramble for it and that is
what we did today," Cleveland police
leader Gallagher said yesterday after
the announcement of the end of the
strike.
THERE WERE scattered reports of
vandalism of small businesses in some
Cleveland districts while police were on
strike.
Vandals smashed the window fronts
of a dozen stores in the usually quiet
area of the city known as Old
Brooklyn. Some merchants said they
planned to spend last night inside their
stores to protect their property.
EARLIER yesterday, Kucinich,
who had asked for state help in han-
dling the strike, abruptly ended a news
conference when he was told Gov.
James Rhodes had denied helpfrom the
highway patrol and National Guard.
Rhodes, attending a Midwest Gover-
nors Conference in Kentucky, had or-
dered National Guard observers into
this city of 70,000 to gather information
on the effects of the walkout.
Kucinich, saying he had some reports
of police "acting like hoodlums" during
the walkout, said he would not reinstate
the 13 officers but would agree to con-
tinuing two-man patrols on the housing
projects rather than the one-officer
beats required by the order.
He said he wnuld not reinstate the 12
SOME OF PHILADELPHIA'S 22,000 striking non-uniformed municipal workers
seeking more pay and job security picket city hall yesterday morning.
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