{"id":13115,"date":"2012-07-12T14:26:21","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T18:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=13115"},"modified":"2012-07-12T14:26:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T18:26:21","slug":"unions-fight-scranton-mayor-after-he-cuts-pay-to-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/07\/unions-fight-scranton-mayor-after-he-cuts-pay-to-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"Unions Fight Scranton Mayor After He Cuts Pay to Minimum Wage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The city\u2019s problems are related in part to a standoff between the mayor and City Council. Its members, at a meeting last month, include its president, Janet Evans, Frank Joyce, center, and Jack Loscombe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By MICHAEL COOPER and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When the city of Scranton, Pa., found itself down to its last $5,000 in the bank last week, its Democratic mayor took a highly unusual step: he unilaterally cut the pay of city workers \u2014 including police officers, firefighters and even himself \u2014 to the minimum wage, just $7.25 an hour. Now the city\u2019s unions are fighting for their promised pay in court.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe teenagers who work at the ice cream stand not far from my house, they make $8.50 an hour \u2014 that\u2019s a dollar and a quarter more than I now make,\u201d said John J. Judge IV, a 10-year veteran firefighter who is the president of the Scranton local of the firefighters\u2019 union.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Scranton finds itself in a position that is unusual even in this era of widespread budget pain: it has nearly run out of cash and, so far, no one is willing to lend it more.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the city has fallen behind on its bills, it has received warning letters from the company that sells it gasoline for its police cars and fire trucks; the landfill where it dumps its garbage; and even its water company, which threatened to cut off service, according to<\/span> a lawsuit<\/span><\/a><\/span> that Mayor Christopher A. Doherty filed against Scranton\u2019s City Council last month in an attempt to force it to adopt his financial plan, which calls for raising taxes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Doherty warned in the suit that the city\u2019s \u201cbasic daily operating functions\u201d could be compromised, \u201cplacing the city\u2019s residents in immediate peril and undermining their health, safety and public welfare.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The troubles of Scranton, a city of 76,000, are a combination of long-term structural decline, a mayor and City Council at loggerheads and, since June, an inability to borrow. A majority on the Council turned Scranton into a financial pariah this spring by refusing to honor<\/span> a guarantee<\/span><\/a><\/span> that the city had placed on the revenue bonds issued by its parking authority. The<\/span> municipal bond<\/span><\/a><\/span> market took its refusal as a sign that the city might also default on its own bonds, and cut off credit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only bank still willing to help Scranton raise money pulled out of a $16 million short-term financing deal, leading to a cash crunch. The Council later said it would honor the guarantee after all, but the city remains unable to borrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unions representing city workers won a court injunction last week ordering the mayor not to cut their pay. But the city issued the smaller checks anyway last Friday, and the union went back to court on Tuesday, asking a judge to hold the mayor and the city in contempt of court. It also challenged the city for not paying overtime and for cutting disability payments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are running out of laws to violate,\u201d said the lawyer representing the unions, Thomas W. Jennings, who said the workers were caught in the middle of the battle between the mayor and the City Council. \u201cWe are literally caught in the cross hairs between the Hatfields and the McCoys.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Doherty, who did not return calls seeking comment,<\/span> told The Times-Tribune of Scranton<\/span><\/a><\/span> last week that the city could not afford to make its payroll. \u201cWhat am I going to pay them with?\u201d he asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Lewis, a financial consultant living in Scranton who follows the developments closely, said that last Thursday, July 5, the city had only $5,000 on hand. By Monday, he said, the total was up to $133,000 \u2014 but still nowhere near enough to pay its unpaid bills.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard A. Ciccarone, a managing director at McDonnell Investment Management, an investment advisory firm, said Scranton\u2019s problems were rare.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that they have only $100,000 cash, that\u2019s really next to nothing,\u201d said Mr. Ciccarone, who tracks how much cash cities have on hand. He said that last year less than 2 percent of American cities found themselves without enough cash to cover more than 30 days of expenses; the typical city had enough to last 246 days. Scranton, he said, appeared to have only enough for a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Judge, the president of the firefighters\u2019 union, said that his last paycheck was about a third of what he usually gets, and that some colleagues were already worried that they would not be able to pay their bills, or that their credit would be ruined. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a firefighter or police officer, all your tension has to be focused on the job ahead \u2014 it\u2019s an emergency situation, it\u2019s dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd now they\u2019ve got all this on their minds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MICHAEL COOPER and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH When the city of Scranton, Pa., found itself down to its last $5,000 in the bank last week,..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,166,181,97],"tags":[347],"class_list":["post-13115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-government","category-labor","category-us-news","tag-workers-struggle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SCRANTON-articleLarge_13115_f52b7.jpg?fit=600%2C298&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}