City leaders have hired a renowned St. Louis law firm to deal with city workers’ efforts to organize a union and an attorney for that firm will meet today  to discuss that effort.
Rolla has obtained the services of The Lowenbaum Partnership, LLC, of 222 South Central Ave. in St. Louis to represent it in its dealings with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). City employees in the Street, Sanitation, Water and Sewer and Park departments have indicated a desire to join the SEIU.

Lowenbaum attorney Ivan L. Schraeder has been assigned to the case and will meet at 9 a.m. today with City Administrator John Butz and other city leaders.

“I really can’t say what the city’s stance is yet,” Schraeder said Wednesday night. “I will meet with the city administrator (today) for the first time.”

While Schraeder, who has 35 years of labor relations experience, has yet to meet with Rolla officials, SEIU Representative Perry Molens held yet another meeting Wednesday afternoon with 21 city workers seeking to unionize.

“Make no mistake, gentlemen. This is an excellent, high-priced law firm,” Molens said. “They (the city) don’t have the money to give you decent raises, but they have the money to hire attorneys at $250 an hour.

“This is an excellent law firm. I’ve sat across the table from Mike (Firm President Michael Lowenbaum) several times. He’s a tough negotiator, and he’s expensive.”
Molens told city workers to be prepared for a long, tough fight and issued a challenge to those city workers attending.

“They will try to wear you down,” Molens said. “They’re going to stall this, fight you tooth and nail, so I need to know how committed you are to this effort.

“Right now, they’ve bought three weeks. Their efforts to stall have cost the taxpayers,” Molens said. “The only way they can beat you is if you let them.”

Molens said told city workers he plans to schedule a meeting within two weeks to set a union vote date, which, he said, will come much later.

The meeting Wednesday is at least the sixth gathering in which Molens has attended with city workers.

Workers are seeking to unionize after the adopted a budget last fall that included a 1 percent pay raise with a 1.5 percent raise for incentives and bonuses.

City workers contend their 2-1/2 percent pay raise pales in comparison to fellow city workers employed by Rolla Municipal Utilities who averaged a 5 percent pay raise.
Many of the workers who seek to organize the union are in the Street, Sanitation, Sewer and Park departments, who see themselves exposed to the elements –- performing similar outdoor duties –- as their RMU brethren with higher pay raises.
SEIU has 5,000 members in Missouri. Its Web site says it’s the fastest-growing union in North America, with 1.9 million members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Focused on uniting workers in four sectors –- hospital systems, long-term care, property services, and public services –- SEIU is the largest health-care union, the largest property services union, and the second-largest public employees union, its Web site states.

Rolla city workers are not without a union. The firefighters are unionized.
The SEIU office is located at 5585 Pershing Ave. in St. Louis.