Allen County’s Republican Party leader has a new proposal to protect workers he says will “smooth the edges” of Fort Wayne’s recent ban on collective bargaining for most city employees.
Chairman Steve Shine sent a letter to Republican members of the Fort Wayne City Council Friday urging them to create an appeals process for city workers that would ensure fairness in firing and disciplinary decisions.
Shine says he was initially approached on the matter by Jeremy Bush with the Fort Wayne Professional Firefighers union, who asked him to intercede with a proposal.
Shine says the creation of an independent appeals board would allow for one of the protections unions previously enjoyed under collective bargaining without keeping the city beholden to other union interests.
“I think that this will go a long, long way in alleviating the concerns that the employees have expressed as to the manner in which they can utilize their due process rights,” Shine said.
In an email to WBOI, John Perlich with Mayor Tom Henry’s office cited an internal memo from July 14th showing much of what Shine proposed in the letter is already in place or in the process of being addressed.
Perlich says the administration “has been and continues to be committed to protecting employees.”
