Friday, May 21, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.
A month ago it looked as though Las Vegas justices of the peace had given up their much-criticized push to break a collective bargaining agreement with some 100 employees.
Everyone was happy. The justices, after a bout of temporary insanity flirting with a plan that would break basic labor law, had come to their senses.
They said Clark County would continue to be responsible for the overall management of Justice Court employees, and the labor contract the county signed with the local Service Employees International Union in 2003 would continue to be honored.
But labor peace remains elusive in Justice Court.
The influential union, which represents thousands of county employees, said this week that the justices of the peace are back to undermining the collective bargaining process.
Union leaders again are so furious that they're threatening political retribution, which could mean withholding endorsements in Campaign 2004. Not only are SEIU endorsements at stake here, but so are those handed out by the Central Labor Council and the Nevada AFL-CIO, two groups that are closely following this squabble in Justice Court.
Several of the justices up for reelection, including Chief Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo, the point man in the attack on the collective bargaining agreement, are running unopposed and won't be hurt this year if they fail to win any labor endorsements. But unions are known to have long memories, and there's no guarantee those judges won't be stung by the SEIU if they run again four years from now.
One justice of the peace, Doug Smith, is facing stiff opposition in a race for the Nevada Supreme Court this year and needs all the help he can get.
On Thursday, in the face of the latest criticism, both Abbatangelo and Smith insisted the three-year labor contract isn't going to be abandoned, and they said they didn't understand why the union is so hot.
While Smith is trying to distance himself from this, Abbatangelo said the justices have given the union "everything it wants."
"It's got the collective bargaining agreement, and it's being recognized as the representative of the employees," Abbatangelo said.
But SEIU Executive Director Jane McAlevey said the justices haven't been backing up their words with actions.
"On the one hand, they're out there telling us that they recognize SEIU, but they're behaving in all of the same ways as if they're busting the union," she said.
What has irked McAlevey is a new set of the court's own personnel rules Abbatangelo has distributed to employees, which McAlevey contends include "anti-union language."
In one section the justices suggest that they can unilaterally modify the collective bargaining agreement, which by law they can't, and they give no assurances that they will seek to negotiate a new contract when the current one expires on June 30, 2006.
"That's not the kind of behavior we're looking for from them," McAlevey said.
Just as bad in McAlevey's eyes was an attempt by the justices to prohibit union representatives from attending a series of meetings with employees to discuss the revised rules.
Abbatangelo said the union now is welcome at the meetings. But that's only because McAlevey wrote the judge a nasty memo, educating him on how collective bargaining is supposed to work.
It's almost hard to believe that people we elect to sit in judgment of us can be so ignorant of such a basic democratic process.
Today the union is demanding that all of the justices of the peace sign a statement publicly pledging to preserve the labor agreement. A written apology also is being sought.
Whether the justices oblige the union is anyone's guess.
But if they ever come back to their senses again, they'll sign on the dotted line as soon as possible and put an end to this madness -- for the sake of their employees and their own political careers.
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