Plans to outsource city jobs and deciding to bust the non-uniform employees union just to restore their rights but not the employment contract caused a backlash within the community.

City councilors ignited a labor movement of sorts in Muskogee with those decisions. Candidates competing for four City Council ward posts have offered a variety of viewpoints on the labor issues.

Three of the four candidates making bids for the Ward III seat held by Vice Mayor Robert Perkins, who is stepping down after nearly 20 years in office, are no different. While those three candidates expressed support for collective bargaining rights, only one said outsourcing city jobs was acceptable.

The fourth Ward III candidate, Christopher Fulton, has yet to weigh in on any issues despite frequent media requests.

Dale “D.” Boots, who competed in 2008 against Perkins, said he is not a “strong supporter of privatizing” public jobs. But Boots said there may be instances when that might be necessary.

“I feel the existing City Council voted to do what they felt was the best decision for all involved — to provide the best services for the citizens of Muskogee,” Boots said. “That is something I feel people sometimes forget or choose not to say. But as elected officials, they have to make decisions — sometimes totally unpopular — but decisions that they feel will benefit the masses the most.”

Derrick Reed, program director at the Martin Luther King Center, said a proposal to outsource the management of Muskogee’s wastewater treatment plant was misguided. Reed cited the plan as an example of decisions by city administrators “that have created an adversarial relationship with the employees.”

“When our employees submitted a proposal that was $800,000 less than the lowest bid, it was dismissed without real consideration,” Reed said. “The real tragedy here is that the privatization effort would have sent our tax dollars overseas instead of back into the local economy.”

Reed said the money city employees say they can save by streamlining wastewater treatment plant operations could be used to improve its aging infrastructure. That, Reed said, would create more jobs.

William Strand Jr., who transports heavy equipment for Glover and Associates, offered no opinion about outsourcing city jobs. Strand did, however, express conditional support for non-uniform employees’ collective bargaining rights.

“I believe we need to have a union for the non-uniform workers — someone to represent them,” Strand said. “But I don’t want the union to dictate when there are grievances — I mean there is right and wrong and then there’s righteousness. Let’s not nitpick the system just to keep someone’s job.”

Strand said every city employee should be accountable to the taxpayers. According to Strand’s stated work ethic, city employees should do their jobs, earn their money and not expect any handouts.

Boots and Reed’s support for the city’s non-uniform employees and their collective bargaining rights is less reserved.

Boots said while city councilors back-tracked and granted employees the right to re-organize, they did so with stipulations that will make it hard to do.

“Now, I’m sorry, and you may not agree with this country boy, but right is right and wrong is wrong,” Boots said. City councilors need to “do the right thing and return their union to them in the condition and state you took it from them in.”

Reed reiterated that point, saying he supports whatever is needed to place non-uniform employees in the position they were in before they were stripped of their collective bargaining rights.

“I value employee unions, support their right to organize, and respect their contributions to our country,” Reed said. “I am deeply concerned about the recent actions by the current administration that have created an adversarial relationship with the employees.”

Muskogee voters will get their chance to choose four ward representatives and the city’s next mayor Feb. 14. A run-off election is scheduled for April 3 if one is necessary.

Reach D.E. Smoot at (918) 684-2901 or dsmoot@muskogeephoenix.com.