In the 1993 election year the union had to make a major decision on whom to support for mayoral position, the one we chose was defeated. Because he did not win, there was a struggle between union and management. This did not come about because the union was looking to control the new administration, but the town wanted benefits given back which were negotiated with the mayor that we were supporting.

The union's main goal during this time frame was to get the new administration to have some kind of respect for us when we went down to the town hall to resol

Winning so many arbitrations was the beginning of the respect the union was looking for, but not until the town and the union spent thousands of dollars unnecessarily in arbitration. Another reason the town started respecting us is that when we first started to bargain with the town there were people on both sides who thought they were in the "Jimmy Hoffa" era of negotiating. There was yelling and screaming across the table because of personal reasons that carried into the negotiations. We would no longer put up with this and weed off all the people on the board that negotiated like this and the town seemed to do the same.

The town of Johnston's first task with the firefighters union was to negotiate a contract. They came after our Blue Cross insurance, pension, pay, and our promotional exam. They would soon find out that the firefighters union was in no position to just give benefits back to the town. They were in for a fight. These negotiations went on for an extensive amount of time.

The administration now, which is running the town of Johnston, took over in 1994. They thought that the firefighter contract was a lucrative one. The town leaders thought that they would win many benefits back by just taking us to arbitration. Along with this attitude, the town leaders had little respect for the union and the leaders of the union because of the reasons mentioned before.

This was another major mistake the town made, in not having any respect for the unions advice in how to handle the dispute the town cost the taxpayers money in arbitration and in payment to the union members. The town would not take our advice no matter how straightforward we were with them. I can understand that they thought we were trying to manipulate them into the way we seen fit, but that was not the situation. All the union executive members were from the town and along with negotiating a contract or going to

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1289
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)