Contract talks irk Bangor officers

BANGOR – Several Police Department command officers turned up at Monday night’s City Council meeting to air their grievances about the city’s negotiating style.

During the meeting’s public comment period, Sgt. D. Ward Gagner expressed the officers’ objections to the city’s “same-size-fits-all” approach to contract negotiations, and its “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude toward employees dissatisfied with the end result.

“Our only option was to make our voices heard by the council and the community,” said Gagner, a veteran police officer assigned to Bangor International Airport. He spoke to the council on behalf of members of the command officers’ bargaining unit.

As it stands, the command officers are in the process of negotiating a labor contract with the city to succeed their prior agreement, which expired June 30.

They are the only remaining city labor group that has yet to ratify a contract.

Among the command officers’ complaints were that they aren’t compensated as well as colleagues from other Maine communities comparable in size to Bangor and that pay increases were eaten up by rising health insurance contributions.

Gagner said the group went to the bargaining table with an offer they believed was reasonable and made two subsequent offers “only to be rebuffed at every opportunity.”

Assistant City Manager Bob Farrar couldn’t comment on specifics because the commanders’ contract still was under negotiation.

Farrar did confirm that all of the labor groups with which three-year contracts have been settled have received essentially the same deal, 2.5 percent raises during the first year and 2 percent increase for the two remaining years.