Cambridge Municipal Workers Will Resist Threatened Pay Cuts

Members of a Cambridge municipal workers union unanimously rejected City Manager James L. Sullivan's offer of a five per-cent cut in pay at a union meeting last night.

Four hundred union workers of the State, City and Town Employees Union, Local 195, an independent union and the largest employees union in Cambridge with over 700 members, assembled at Rindge Technical School's auditorium in opposition to each of Sullivan's proposals for a new contract replacing one that expired December 31 of last year.

Sullivan proposed the pay cut as the first of a series of weekly bargaining sessions on February 4. "Cambridge city workers are the highest paid in the Commonwealth." Sullivan said, adding that the pay cuts are designed to alleviate the "serious financial condition of both the city and state."

Sullivan said the city may be forced to lay off workers if the pay cuts are not accepted.

James P. Cassidy, president of Local 195, said that "under no conditions" would he agree to the cut. "I am well aware of their financial troubles, but 1975 is not the time for workers to give up what they've fought so hard to win."

High-Paid Officials

Cassidy added, "We have some awfully highly paid officials in this Commonwealth, and we ought to start pay cuts in that area."

Michael Feinberg attorney for the union, said that negotiations are presently making little progress since the city is offering only an ultimatum of pay cuts or lay-offs.

He said he hoped to avoid a strike, but noted that two work stoppages had occurred in the past two years.

Cassidy told the assembly that the prospect of lay-offs could divide the union workers. "Let's stand together and say nobody goes."

Public Works Cutbacks

Cassidy said that the city was threstening to cutback equipment as well as personnel in public works by, for example, reducing the number of trucks handling refuse collections.

Feinberg said the union represents workers from Cambridge libraries, hospitals and public works.

In compensation for the pay cut the city also offered 99-per-cent health care coverage, which fell $400 short of the making up for wage losses, he said.