By John C. Drake
The Boston Globe
BOSTON — Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino declared his support for requiring random drug and alcohol testing for all police and firefighters in the state yesterday, saying cities and towns should not have to negotiate the testing with public safety unions.
Menino staked out the position in a letter delivered to the State House in support of a bill that would require the testing statewide.
The union representing the state’s firefighters opposed the bill, saying it should continue to be negotiated with unions “to protect everyone’s rights.”
The topic of mandatory random drug and alcohol testing is a central point of contention in contract talks with the Boston firefighters union.
The issue was highlighted last year after evidence was found that two firefighters who died in a West Roxbury restaurant fire had a drug or alcohol in their system; one’s blood-alcohol level was over the legal driving limit, and the other had traces of cocaine.
Leaders of Local 718 in Boston, part of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, have said they are not opposed to random testing, but want concessions from the Menino administration in exchange.
The city’s police officers already must undergo random drug and alcohol testing, and the city’s emergency medical technicians recently approved a contract with drug and alcohol testing included.
The drug-testing bill’s chances of passage this session are slim, but it is expected to be debated next year. It is pending before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, which held a brief hearing on it yesterday.
State Representative Christopher J. Donelan of Orange, who filed the measure, said he believes that drug and alcohol testing should be “uniform and statewide.”
“There are a lot of excellent professional public safety people who are having their careers diminished by a few, and I think they’re concerned about the rap their profession is taking,” Donelan said in a telephone interview. “I think for the most part a lot of them feel this isn’t a big deal to show they’re coming into work drug- and alcohol-free.”
In his letter to committee cochairmen Senator James Timility and Representative Michael Costello, Menino pointed out that federal law requires truck drivers and bus drivers to undergo random testing, while “in our very most safety-sensitive workforce, no such requirement exists.
“Instead, it is left to each city or town to attempt to secure this safeguard through the collective bargaining process,” Menino wrote. “Cities and towns consequently are met with demands to pay a high premium, as well as forsake other necessary reforms, in order to attempt to get police and fire unions to agree to such a policy. This is simply not a logical way to deal with a policy matter that is critical to the public’s safety and even more critical to the safety of the men and woman of our public safety workforce.”
But Robert McCarthy, president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, called the proposal an unfunded mandate directed at cities and towns. He said such requirements should continue to be negotiated, as they have for about 40 percent of local firefighter unions in the state already.
“This isn’t going to be a good bill,” McCarthy said in a telephone interview. “It should be treated as a sophisticated bargaining issue to protect everyone’s rights.”