Cambridge, Sanitation Union Pick Robert Stutz as Arbiter

The city and Local 195 of the Public Works Union agreed last Tuesday to accept Robert L. Stutz as arbitor in the contract dispute that caused a one-day sanitation employees strike last week.

Stutz is "one of the ten busiest arbiters in the country and is frequently booked four months in advance," a spokesman for the American Arbitration Association, said yesterday.

Statz performed his most famous arbitration work earlier this year when he ruled against Bernie Carbo in a salary dispute with the Boston Red Sox management.

Both Robert Healy, assistant city manager, and Michael Feinberg, lawyer for the union, said yesterday that there had been no disagreement about Stutz's selection.

The State Labor Relations Commission, in settling last week's strike, ordered the city and the union to submit the unresolved issues to binding arbitration and select the arbiter within 14 days.

Primary Issue

The primary issue to be settled centers around a union demand that the city pay 99 per cent of the workers' health insurance an increase from its present 60 per cent contribution.

Other issues include giving employees Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday off and eliminating barrel rolling, the use of sanitation men to "roll" barrels from the backwards to the sidewalks at the homes of elderly and sick.

Healy said that the strike cost the city no extra money and possibly saved it a bit, since the striking workers will receive no pay for last Wednesday.

John Crassly, the president of Local 195 was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Another high union official, who declined to be identified, said yesterday that the one-day strike had been successful in bringing movement to negotiations, which had been deadlocked since January.

"This is the first time in the history of the state that a dispute with garbage men has submitted to final and binding arbitration," he said.

He said that unless the city manager would have agreed to arbitration the strike would have continued indefinitely.