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James
Ward Second Vice President
E-mail: Sqd6143@aol.com
I
would like to start by thanking you for having the
confidence in re-electing me as your Second Vice
President. I
enjoy this job tremendously and look forward to
representing you for the next three years.
Gary
has updated you on the status of our contract
negotiations so I will not go into it except to say that
we are one hundred percent prepared for arbitration and
feel we will be very successful.
Hopefully by the end of September or early
October we will have our arbitration award.
Since
the last Gold Shield we have been very busy with
improper practices, grievances and our re-opener. The updates are as follows:
·
Re-opener – On April 14th,
we had a hearing before Arbitrators’ Scheinman,
Edelman and Donohue re-opening our Arbitration Award.
The issues that were discussed at this hearing
were:
1.
Additional meal money for extraditions and
training involving travel.
2.
Stipends for supervisors in B.S.O., Applicant
Investigation, E.S.U., Breath Technicians and Dive Team
supervisors be calculated into their base pay.
3.
Forty-eight (48) hour straight time grievance
awarded to P.B.A. members be extended to S.O.A. members.
4.
County should support legislation similar to the
P.B.A. for arbitration involving disciplinaries in which
the fine will be ten days or more or termination.
The
Arbitrators have reserved decision on the first three
items and hopefully we will have an answer in a few
months. The
Arbitrators ruled immediately that they did not have
jurisdiction to force the County to support legislation
for arbitrations on disciplinaries.
As a result of this we have had meetings with
both the Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature
and are requesting they move this legislation without
the County’s support.
We should know shortly how this turns out.
·
Impact Bargaining – On April 28th
we had an impact bargaining session on an improper
practice we filed on the County for “failure to
negotiate the impact of changing the chart for narcotics
supervisors”. The
County conceded that they implemented this chart without
negotiating with us.
The remedy we agreed to is monetary credit would
be given our union in the upcoming arbitration.
·
Use of accrued time in contemplation of
retirement – This grievance that involves two
captains who were denied the use of their accrued time
when they announced their retirement was heard before
Arbitrator Howard Edelman.
We presented a tremendous amount of evidence and
Arbitrator Edelman has now requested each side prepare a
deposition. Hopefully
we will have a ruling shortly.
That’s
it for now. Stay
safe out there.
Winter
2008 article ....
Happy New Year to all!
2008 is here and hopefully we will have a
contract by the end of the summer or early fall. I’m
sure most have heard that the Superior Officers
Association and the County have agreed that if we fail
to negotiate or mediate a contract, we will enter
binding arbitration and will receive up to a six year
award similar to the Police Benevolent Association and
Detectives Association Incorporated. This agreement to
receive an award longer than two years needed
legislative approval and was passed unanimously. We
thank the County Legislature for their fast action on
our request.
There are many people upset
about the award the Detectives Association Incorporated
received. I was fortunate that Tom Willdigg had invited
me to his informational meeting.
Tom had done an excellent job explaining how the
arbitration process works and that all of his union’s
needs were addressed. There were a number of complaints
as well as compliments mainly regarding some of the
givebacks. The bottom line that everyone should see is
that at the end of the contract the Nassau County
Detectives will be one of the highest, if not the
highest paid, Detectives in the Country. Tom and his
negotiating team deserve a tremendous amount of credit
for this accomplishment.
FLYING
– After a six month suspension of flying it was
re-instituted on November 23rd. This overtime
saving initiative saves very little money and is
terrible for the morale of the patrol supervisors in the
eight precincts. We have asked Commissioner Mulvey to
attend our Board meeting in February as well as attend
our open meeting and explain why this has been
re-implemented. One of the main questions that many of
our members have been asking is “Why does it appear
that all his cost saving initiatives are on the backs of
the supervisors?”
I’m curious to hear his answer.
IMPROPER
PRACTICE – In October 2005, we were in the process
of filing a grievance regarding the use of straight
time. The Police Benevolent Association had filed a
similar grievance. When discussing the potential
grievance with Deputy Commissioner McGuigan it was
agreed by both of us that the Superior Officers
Association would not file this grievance and the
Superior Officers Association would accept the results
of whatever happens in the Police Benevolent Association
grievance. Commissioner McGuigan documented this
agreement with us in a letter dated October 25,
2005 in which he stated “THE DEPARTMENT AGREES TO BE
BOUND BY THE Police Benevolent Association GRIEVANCE
ARBITRATION REGARDING THE APPLICABILITY OF TIME OTHER
THAN PERSONAL LEAVE AND COMPENSATORY TIME AS IT RELATES
TO ITEM 9 IN THE Superior Officers Association FINAL
INTEREST ARBITRATION AWARD.” Two years later the
Police Benevolent Association finally settles this
grievance and is awarded the use of 48 hours of straight
time. I called Commissioner McGuigan and he immediately
extended this to our union. One week later Dan McCray
the Labor Director, who wasn’t even employed by the
County in 2005, overruled Commissioner McGuigan and
directed him not to honor this agreement. He gave
Commissioner McGuigan no explanation. We are now heading
to PERB in Brooklyn and an Administrative Law Judge will
make a ruling.
GRIEVANCE
– The grievance involving two Captains who were denied
the use of there accumulated time in contemplation of
retirement has been set for March 10th before
Howard Edelman.
GRIEVANCE-
the grievance involving stand-by pay for units that were
not part of the prior award has not been scheduled yet.
We have asked the County Labor Director to schedule this
numerous times and he still is dragging his feet. Our
attorney is now looking into legal action with PERB to
get him to schedule it.
RE-
OPENER – We still have not heard from the previous
arbitration panel for a date to re-open our award. We
are attempting to address the following issues that the
Police Benevolent Association and Detectives Association
Incorporated had received. They include meal money
increase for extraditions, specialty stipends be
incorporated into base pay as per Police Benevolent
Association Award and support legislation to permit
arbitration of discipline.
That’s
about it for this month Stay safe out there.
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