You want a new post to talk about important things?

Since we mentioned last night that noone was bringing up topics that could really be expanded upon - here. From the comments section at SCC:

Anonymous said...
OEMC has the same probles that theCPD has. OEMC is undermanned, we're undermanned. OEMC has some people who are really good at their job and some who do very little and don't care, and nothing is done to the lazy employees. We do too.OEMC lets people out of training who should be fired before some one has to depend on them. Same thing for us. OEMC is as screwed up as the CPD.

9/26/2007 02:12:00 PM

Okay, let's expand on how undermanned we are, and how Operations is so short that every shift has so many regular overtime workers, that it's confusing to try to remember which watches people are actually assigned to.

Let's expand on how few people there are who are "really good at their jobs," as opposed to the ones you cringe about in roll call when you hear that you're stuck working with them for the whole tour.

Let's expand on how many people there are (Yes, there's about a 150-in-less-than-400 chance that you're one of them, in spite of your "self-importance" complex) who "should be fired before someone has to depend on them." Who never should've been let out of training. We can count on one hand the number of people who've been fired (not resigned on their own) from the training stage in the last 4 or 5 years.

Or, let's expand on how many people there are who at the job who truly have that sense of "entitlement," who think that things should be handed to them. How many people there are who feel that they should do a minimum of work while their partners/coworkers take up the slack? Who feel that there's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing their asses into work on an RDO making time-and-a-half or double-time while you, our friends, sit there earning straight-time pay and doing 1.5 times or 2 times the amount of work they're doing?

How about the ones who have a *different* sense of entitlement? You know, the ones who whine and cry about getting dumped from cushy spots and being subject to working with the "little people" they thumbed their noses at while they were detailed out? And now that they're back with the "peons," they do things like advocate job action via PCAD (brilliant) when situations don't go their ways (i.e., cancelling of days off), but when situations go their ways (i.e., non-cancelling of days off), damn everyone else to hell, and "So sorry for you?" And whine and cry even more when they get disciplined for advocating job action via PCAD while other people don't get disciplined for sending non-job-action messages via PCAD?

Note: Promoting job action is a terminable offense, so the punishment was pretty lenient considering. Simple "misuse of PCAD" is not. Read the contract. And don't keep any high hopes of winning that grievance. The OEMC world's bigger than you are; you're not the first person in almost 13 years to get singled out for a blatant offense. And did we mention that it was blatant?

Now you have a slew of topics to talk about. If none of these points affects/bothers you enough to spark a discussion, you might as well stop reading.

Just a thought

Is anyone ever going to refill the hand sanitizer dispensers?

Once?

Maybe?

Anyone?

Misophobe to volunteer?

"Don't Blame Me."

That's the headline on the front page of today's Scum-Times, courtesy of King Richard.

Sunday, said paper ran an article on the mayor's nephew, Robert Vanecko, and his partner, Allison Davis, an mayoral ally whom the article curiously described as "African-American" (he looked pretty Caucasian to us, but what do we know).

The two own a business venture, DV Urban Realty Partners. Okay, no big deal. the city entered into a deal with them last year, and they are now key investors in our (yes, you and us) pension fund. Okay, that's a big deal. But cut back to the previous paragraph, in which we mentioned that Vanecko is Daley's nephew. That's a HUGE deal. And yes, that's a double entendre.

We take "Ethics class" every year, lest we get fined $500 by the city. Can someone remind us of which part of the city' Code of *Ethics* (farce) specifies that your relatives can't benefit from your position within the city government? We're sure it's mentioned somewhere in so many words.

But, of course, the mayor has that covered with his usual bumbling, bullshit "innocent/ignorant" answers.

"Well, they have to make their professional decisions." "It could be any business." "I am not on that board."

Right, so on to the more important issue here. When/if your nephew runs our pensions into the ground, it's not your fault. When our pension plan gets taken away just like "Medical after 2013" because your NEPHEW'S investments take us under, it's not your fault.

We get it. You demand unfaltering support from the City Council, even though they're voted in by citizens. Your "loyal" supporters end up in enviable positions that theoretically report to you in city government, but have to take the fall when things go bad (or illegal) and you "had no knowledge" of what your allies were doing. But now your nephew claims he "never told" the connected pension boards that he was the mayor's blood relative.

Right. And that whole thing doesn't smack of numerous Ethics Code violations that the city would *separate* us for. And we're too stupid to realize that Dick places just enough space (Read: Lackeys) between himself and whoever's benefitting from his position to make it hard to prove those Ethics Code violations.

If our pension funds get worse, "Duh" Mayor will distance himself farther from the deal. If it remains as stable (?) as it is now, he go mute. If by some miracle it greatly improves, the mayor will proudly laud his nephew and himself.

How long did it take for him to get that April 2006 deal done, compared to the 2+ years it took us to get a contract ratified after the previous one had expired?

Thanks for pissing in our faces again, "Your Dishonor."

All Gone.

Well, all remnants of the previous administration have officially moved on. R.H. is now ruining CTA (it was bad already, but he has the anti-Midas touch, as we ALL well know). M.K. has left, AV III and D.Z. are gone, both to the state if you believe our readers, and now B.O. has left the building

And hell, we even dropped C.G. for good measure as a bonus!

So now it's a new era. Or is it just going to be the same shit it's been for years, with yet another executive director who's going to smear the Ops Floor employees' faces with excrement?

Compensatory time

Everyone knows (or maybe not) that Watch Managers are limited to the number of compensatory time hours they're allowed to grant us on a monthly basis. We don't recall the exact number, and maybe someone can correct us, but we believe it's between 400 and 500 hours. The latter would mean that 62 people can have the day off "time due," which pretty much amounts to 2 people per day.

Not a happy thought for those who have upwards of 100 (or even 50) hours on the books. Hell, if you have any time on the books, it's a bitch. We've gotten denied days off that we put in for *months* in advance because of "manpower shortages."

Well, the city got told by a federal judge that they aren't allowed to do that anymore - at least not to the police. The story can be found over at SecondCityCop, and at the FOP website.

Now, when the hell are we going to get some justice like that? The judge told the city that they're not allowed to use "manpower" as an excuse for denying time due, and have to hire people who want to work overtime to cover spots for those who want the day off (don't we hire a ton of people to work overtime almost every day already anyway?). Too bad it probably won't apply to us. To quote SCC:

If we're reading this correctly, if you have time on the books and want to use it, YOU CANNOT BE DENIED TIME OFF. Manpower is NOT an excuse. If the Department cannot field a car, they are either going to have to leave it unmanned, allow officers to trade days off with other officers, or pay time-and-a-half to people who are RDO (by seniority) to work the uncovered car. This is huge. The City has been told in no uncertain terms that they are subject to Federal Labor Law. Imagine that.

But as we all know, the city doesn't see us in the same light. They screw us over sooner/longer than they'll screw sworn personnel over, always have, and will continue to. They'll come up with some excuse to exempt us from "Federal Labor Law."

Anyone from the union reading this who might want to, say, bring this up at CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS, to make sure it's in print for us, too?

For all to see

Per request:

Megan Aylward said...

Hi...any way you can put a post regarding the Pipes & Drums of the Emerald Society Chicago PD's 25th Anniversary concert? We've got 2 NY police pipe bands coming in on Thursday to help us celebrate the whole weekend. All info can be found at www.copsinkilts.com or you can email me at megan.aylward@chicagopolice.org.

Town Hall meeting next week.

For all those who've pestered us about a new post - here.

What concerns do you want to address at the meeting? Are you going to speak up? Please do, don't be like so many coworkers who bitch and moan among coworkers, but become deathly mute as soon as bosses are within earshot.

Print it your damned self

We can (and will actually have to) now print our own backlogs. Well, we technically could have before, but we weren't authorized to, and noone showed us how. But there's a training notice floating around, and supervisors will no longer print them for us (unless we're as dumb as bricks and can't figure out the simple task). For those who can't understand the training notice, which we admit is a tad confusing, here's a simpler,abbreviated set of instructions:

1. Right-click on the left monitor as if you were opening a 3270 screen (you do at least know to do that, we hope).
2. Instead of clicking "X3270," click "Print" right above it.
3. In the box that pops up, type in the date in the form of YYDDMM (i.e., 070905 today).
4. Click the "File" menu at the top left, select the second "Print..." option, and click on the diamond for Screen 1.
5. Repeat Step 4, clicking the diamond for Screen 2 instead.

See how easy that is? And now we don't have to wait indefinitely for a floor supervisor. Especially when there's only one working.