Police Union Backs Effort to Reduce the Cost of Health Insurance

By Seth Daniel

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The Revere Police Patrol Officer’s Union has issued a statement this week indicating that they are fully behind a coordinated multi-union effort to help the city reduce health insurance costs.

Two weekends ago, leaders from the Revere Teacher’s Union, the Patrol Officer’s Union, Revere Administrator’s Union, Revere Firefighters Union and the AFSCME Union came together in a small group to discuss a way to help the city with health care costs.

In that discussion, some believed the police might be hesitant, but this week the Patrol Officer’s Union said they are all in.

Union Secretary Joe Covino said there is no hesitancy in the union to help the city on this matter.

“As the secretary of the Revere Police Patrol Officer’s Union, and one of the only two representatives of the patrol officer’s union in attendance, I can confidently and truthfully tell you that statement could not be further from the truth,” wrote Covino.

Covino said that the union was very excited to join the effort and that the day was very productive and an excellent start towards a solution.

“All city unions present had an extremely informative, productive and stimulating meeting,” he wrote. “It is with great pride that the Revere Police Patrol Officer’s Union stands united and undivided with our fellow municipal unions in our ongoing and evolving enterprise to not only save the taxpayers from undue financial burden, but also to progress into a new era of collective bargaining. It is the hope of this landmark and novel unification of unions coming together as a think-tank of alternative, out of the box planning aimed at spearheading a grassroots campaign to keep options open for healthcare reform while not taking away from the collective bargaining positions of the unions and the cities throughout the Commonwealth.”

Covino said that the union decided to issue a statement because they didn’t want to loosen the bond of trust between unions that had been forged recently.

For the record, the only two unions that were not present at the groundbreaking meeting were the Department of Public Works (DPW) union and the Police Superior Officers Union.