Rocky relations
PERB complaint illustrates conflicts between Public Utility Commission and BEGWS union
By ROB PRICE THE COURIER-ADVOCATE

PHOTO BY ROB PRICE Dana Lyon Elementary School students celebrated the history of the U.S. flag Friday in anticipation of Flag Day. The celebration was hosted by the Bath Elks Club.

BATH - As Bath village trustees last month made preparations to dissolve the municipality's Public Utility Commission, relations between the Commission and union-member employees of Bath Electric Gas and Water systems appear to have become particularly rocky.

The now-defunct Commission oversaw operations of BEGWS and had entered into contract negotiations with the BEGWS unit of the Civil Service Employees Association. In early May, the Commission filed a formal complaint against the CSEA alleging union employees were working behind the scenes to have the Commission dissolved.

"The Union has violated ... (state labor law) by engaging in a pattern of conduct that has as a purpose the forced change of the composition of the BEGWS negotiating team," the Commission charged in a complaint filed with the Public Employees Relations Board.

A copy of the complaint was provided anonymously to the Courier. Bath Mayor David Wallace, who is familiar with matter, has verified its authenticity.

Among other charges, the complaint alleges union members personally urged elected village officials, including Wallace, to continue efforts to dissolve the Commission, whose members were negotiating the new contract with the CSEA.

In an interview last week, Wallace denied those charges. "Nobody on our board to my knowledge discussed negotiating issues with union members," he said. The PERB complaint, he added, was "another example" of hostile relations between the union and the Public Utility Commission that Wallace had cited when he announced his own support for dissolving the Commission.

Wallace noted the Bath village board and the CSEA have approved a new one-year contract that provides a 3 percent wage increase to union members.

The mayor said he learned of the PERB complaint on May 13, days before the village board formally dissolved the Commission.

By that time, he said, PERB had decided not to deliver the complaint to the union; rather, it returned the complaint to the Public Utility Commission with instructions to amend or withdraw it.

"It was not refiled," Wallace said. "This is a dead issue."

Wallace added the village board's decision to dissolve the 76-year-old Commission was not driven by labor issues. Trustees were principally concerned with the lack of financial planning for a multimillion-dollar upgrade to the electric infrastructure of BEGWS, Wallace said.