Leaders of R.I. cities and towns protest union-backed 'lifetime contract bill'

PROVIDENCE — On the day before an anticipated House vote on a previously vetoed bill to extend expired municipal and teacher contracts indefinitely, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena served warning: “If this passes, we may as well shut off the lights, give the unions the key and give them the checkbook.”

“This is a lifetime contract bill. That’s right. A lifetime contract bill,” said Polisena, one of the 10 mayors and town administrators standing, side by side, in the State House library on Monday in a unified display of opposition to this latest in a run of union-backed bills making headway this year in the state’s Democrat-dominated legislature.

“If this is allowed to become law, this will clearly put every city and town at a clear disadvantage when it comes to negotiations. This will absolutely — and I will say it again — absolutely raise property taxes.”

And “when I have to raise taxes,” Polisena vowed, he will put the name of every local legislator who voted for the bill “in clear view in the tax collectors’ office so the taxpayers [whom] they represent know who caused [the] tax increase.”

Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190422/leaders-of-ri-cities-and-towns-protest-union-backed-lifetime-contract-bill