About 100 City of Vicksburg employees and union organizers rallied on the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon in the second pro-union demonstration by city workers since February.

The rally had bout 40 city employees and 60 union organizers from across the country. City workers held a similar rally Feb. 16.

Since the push to unionize began, close to 100 city employees have said they want the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to recognize the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees/ Communications Workers of America as their bargaining agent, gas department foreman Joe Alexander said at Wednesday’s rally.

City officials have yet to take a public stand on unionization. Mayor Paul Winfield met March 27 with about 225 city employees and MASE representatives and after gave no details except to say that he told the employees that the time was not right for union recognition.

“I’m going to have to, at some point in time, sit down with the board and reassess some of our positions,” Winfield said Wednesday but declined to give a time frame.

The city employs about 550 people, including policemen, firemen, department heads and seasonal workers, and operates on a nearly $30 million budget.

Alexander has been with the city for 16 years and said he’s seen major turnover in the gas department because of poor working conditions.

“We’ve got people working on gas lines that they want to pay minimum wage, and that’s dangerous,” Alexander said.

Willie Earl Young, who also works in the gas department, said he makes less than $8 per hour after five years with the city.

“They expect us to know all this and get tests and license and still don’t want to give us a pay raise,” Young said as he pulled out his gas department certification card from his wallet.

Unionization also is about equal representation for workers in disputes with the city, said Johnny Trisby, another foreman in the gas department.

“It’s not all about the money. It’s about rights and fairness,” he said.

Unions provide an important bargaining tool for public employees, said Robert Shaffer, Mississippi AFL-CIO President.

“Having an equal voice to me has been more important in my lifetime than anything else,” Shaffer said during the rally. “Being equal gives you all kinds of rights.”

Winfield said late Wednesday that he was unaware the rally had been scheduled for Wednesday and said he didn’t agree with the tactics of the demonstrators.

“I am not an enemy to the union, but these types of demonstrations don’t further the cause in my opinion,” he said.

During the hourlong event, a number of people took Winfield to task, saying he had taken an anti-union stance by not acting on representation for city workers.

By not showing support of unions, Winfield is going against the Democratic Party, said Warren County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman John Shorter.

“No Democrat can say they are anti-union,” Shorter said.

Winfield said he has never come out against unionization.

“The unions, in a general sense, are friends to the Democratic Party and I am most certainly a Democrat,” he said.

Discussion of unionization must be honest from both sides, Winfield said, and employees and the public need to be educated on the exact powers of unions and how unionization could affect the city.

“You cannot promise raises to employees. Those types of things cause misunderstanding and confusion,” Winfield said.

Union officials have said the union would not represent the city’s police and firefighters, who are covered by the city’s Civil Service Board. Under state law, city and county workers who are part of a union are prevented from striking.