Fanwood Considers an Agreement with Labor Union for Public Works Projects

The Fanwood Borough Council is considering an agreement with a local labor union that will allow the borough to hire union workers as needed for certain public works projects, from leaf collection and snow clearance, to sidewalk, curb-work and other small-scale improvement projects.

Rather than fill a vacancy in Fanwood's Department of Public Works with a full-time employee, the borough would temporarily draw workers from the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), Mayor Colleen Mahr said at the Borough Council's agenda meeting Tuesday night.

"Locally, governments have to be more creative in providing their services despite state budget cuts," Mahr said. "It's not meant to take the place of our public works department. It's meant to augment it."

The LIUNA includes Fanwood residents, Mahr said. She emphasized that the union would give priority to those residents, so long as they possess the skill-sets required for the borough's job at the time.  

"There are local men who are sitting in the [union] halls unemployed," Mahr said. "We can't bring someone on [full-time] now, but we have projects where we can save money."

Borough Council members greeted the proposal with enthusiasm. "As a former union man myself, I applaud this terrifically," council member Mike Szuch said.

Council member Anthony Parenti suggested trying the program on a retaining wall replacement project on King Street. "That would be a good time to test it because they already got the skills to do it," he said.

The Borough Council will further discuss the measure – officially called a "Memorandum of Understanding with Laborers' International Union of North America" – at its regular meeting next Tuesday, July 13.