The Finkbeiner administration sent out more than 1,000 layoff notices yesterday to city employees for a citywide shutdown that could last for up to a week of all nonsafety service employees.
"The number of days has yet to be determined, but the first workday [of the layoff] would be Tuesday, Feb. 17, since that Monday is a holiday," said Robert Reinbolt, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's chief of staff. "It will certainly be through that week. Whether it extends into the next week is yet to be determined."
The move is expected to save the city $2 million, Mr. Reinbolt said.
Mayor Finkbeiner on Dec. 23 announced the weeklong layoff of nonessential city workers. The mayor said he disagreed with a decision that week by arbitrator Robert Stein, who ruled three one-day furloughs - Nov. 26, Dec. 26, and Dec. 31 - violated city contracts with American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Locals 7 and 2058 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 20.
The arbitrator's ruling blocked the mayor's effort to furlough city workers for those three days to save an estimated $300,000.
Mr. Stein wrote that while Toledo's financial deficit is real and it has the right to lay off workers, temporary layoffs violated the unions' contracts."We are not doing a one-day furlough. This is a layoff for an undeterrmined amount of time and we need to balance the budget," Mr. Reinbolt said. "We wanted to do the one day here, and one day there, so as not to be so hard on so as not to be so hard on the employees, but the arbitrator said we could not, and this is the next approach."
The February shutdown will exclude police officers, firefighters, and essential employees at the water treatment plant and the water reclamation plant, and possibly refuse collectors.
Eighty-two nonunion city of Toledo workers spent Friday on an unpaid day off work. That furlough applied only to nonunion workers per the arbitrator's decision.
The arbitrator also ordered the city to compensate the 105 union members furloughed Nov. 26. The 82 nonunion workers given furloughs will not be compensated.
The nonunion workers will also stay home unpaid this Friday.
- Ignazio Messina
Search
advertisement
