It remains to be seen whether Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser will cross a Fire Fighters picket line now set for the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting beginning today (Friday) at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence.
“We are tracking the situation and will make a decision when the time comes,” said Funkhouser spokesman Mark Siettmann.
Funkhouser is scheduled to speak at 9:40 a.m. (Kansas City Time) this morning to the Mayors Water Council, so he would have to cross the picket line of Providence Local 799 of the International Association of Fire Fighters unless the picket line is halted by settlement of a long-running dispute with the administration of Providence Mayor David Cicilline.
Vice President Joe Biden and several other members of the administration of President Barack Obama cancelled scheduled appearances at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, declining to cross the Fire Fighters picket line.
“Anyone who crosses a picket line is wrong,” said President Bridgette Williams of the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO. “Thank God President Obama and Vice President Biden understand the importance of union solidarity and are doing the right thing for working men and women in America.”
The Providence Fire Fighter local—along with members of the Rhode Island Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Rhode Island AFL-CIO—will walk picket lines throughout the four-day meeting to protest Mayor Cicilline’s treatment of fire fighters.
The Providence Journal reported Thursday that Cicilline and Paul A. Doughty, Local 799 president, met privately for 45 minutes on Wednesday, but the session did not result in a settlement.
“We appreciate the Obama administration’s support of fire fighters,” said IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger. “This is another example of the administration’s unqualified support for workers and organized labor.”
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