In the latest volley involving a two-year contract dispute, the city and the firefighters’ union are squabbling over whether firefighters were forced to work on a new community garden located behind the South Massey Street fire station.
The Watertown Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 191 filed an improper practice charge with the state Public Employees Relation Board against the city, claiming firefighters were told by the city that they must work on the vegetable garden behind the city’s Emma Flower Taylor Fire Station.
President Daniel Daugherty said the union objected to performing the garden work because it was on behalf of the private drug treatment center.
A group of people involved in the Alliance for Better Communities and its lead agency, Pivot Prevention Services, were involved in organizing the project this spring.
Councilman Stephen A. Jennings is now urging the firefighters’ union to withdraw the improper practice charge, contending that the garden was created for the good of the community and put together solely by volunteers.