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May 9--After 22 months without a contract, Boston firefighters inched reluctantly toward arbitration yesterday in a heated meeting of the state labor panel reviewing their dispute with the Menino administration.

The Joint Labor-Management Committee voted 2-1 to send the case to an investigation hearing. If the sticking points -- among them, random drug and alcohol testing -- aren't resolved there, the case could go to arbitration.

"The mayor refuses to negotiate, refuses to mediate and is insisting on bullying the Boston firefighters into arbitration," said Edward Kelly, president of the firefighters union Local 718.

Dot Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said the city and the union had 18 negotiation sessions before the city petitioned the committee last August to intervene. Another almost seven months passed before the committee had both sides sit down together.

Since then, a mediator has met with the city and union, but Local 718 has yet to submit a proposal, Joyce said.

"The whole point is to have a resolution to this dispute," she said.

Several officials with knowledge of closed-door discussions said firefighters want more than the 14 percent raise offered by the city over the next four years in exchange for random drug and alcohol testing. Boston police and Emergency Medical Services unions received similar bargaining concessions in exchange for mandatory random drug testing.

Robert B. McCarthy, who cast yesterday's dissenting vote as president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, said firefighters do not oppose testing but do not want it imposed on them by an arbitrator.

"This would set a precedent for every fire department in the state," he said.

Calls for testing followed the deaths of two firefighters last August in a West Roxbury blaze. Autopsy results showed that one of the firefighters had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit and the other had traces of cocaine in his system. Since then, two firefighters have been arrested on drug charges.

If the contract dispute continues into next year, it could complicate a re-election bid by Menino, putting firefighters behind a potential challenger, such as City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who is weighing a run for mayor.

mszaniszlo@bostonherald.com

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