To the Editor:

How low will elected politicians go?

In our little town of Berne, there is no low. Two highway workers — both volunteer firefighters with families — were laid off for no other reason than my-way-or-the-highway politics.

Let us all start from the beginning. At the beginning of union negotiations, Supervisor Kevin Croiser said that, if we didn't get rid of the four 10-hour-a-day workweek, negotiations were over. [Deputy Supervisor] Joe Golden and [union representative] Mike Lyons were also in the room at that time when Kevin threw the paperwork on this desk. Mike Lyons said a few words like, this is not negotiating.

Long story short, the union and Town of Berne Highway Department  could not come to terms and we have been working under the 2015 union contract with no raises or changes to the contract that ran from Jan. 1, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2015. We as workers understood that in agreement.

So, in the months to come, we are all called in to Town Hall to discuss a health-insurance change that did not meet up to the existing contract guidelines. Again, Mike Lyons objected, to hear Kevin Croiser say that we were not negotiating health insurance plans.

We as workers were forced to sign, in order to keep health insurance, but all agreed to file a grievance against the town. It took our union, the International Union Of Operating Engineers Local 158 - District 106, around three months to file the grievance.

On a late Friday evening, Kevin Croiser decides to give layoff notices to the last two hired at the highway department. This was done at their homes in front of parents and children at which time he actually said, "Get rid of four 10-hour shifts, you get jobs back and the insurance plan to meet union contract.”

Apparently there was a plan set by the town board and Croiser as the budget was drafted last fall to take two highway worker salaries out of the 2016 budget in order to blackmail all of us to sign his tentative agreement. Randy Bashwinger was the only person at that budget hearing and assumed no wrongdoing by the elected officials he has to work with throughout his time in office.

Wow, for him as a newly elected official to see the blackmail stunt that occurred right before his own eyes. But, not one person there told him of the transfer of funds of his own highway budget.

So on his way to Maine to vacation with family, he heard from my coworkers that they had been laid off. Yeah! Kevin Croiser ruined the entire weekend for all, including me who works hand in hand with these good people. I believe that he and the town board crossed the line and there will be civil or criminal charges in the near future.

It is stated in the collective bargaining agreement signed by Kevin Croiser, Michael Richardson, and Mike Lyons in Subsection 7.1.3 on a compressed workweek that there are no restrictions to the start/end date or duration of the four-day 10-hour workweek throughout any given year. And there is nothing stating that the superintendent of highways has to do anything like notify or ask the town supervisor or the town board.

The 3.1.1 Management Rights Clause will be discussed between lawyers and highway superintendents in the very near future.   

I have much more to say about our town supervisor but I am not willing to waste my time doing so.

Kevin Kemmet

Berne

Editor’s note: Kevin Kemmet, one of a six-man full-time crew at the Berne Highway Department, is currently out as he recovers from a back injury.