Dispatcher Unrest, Suburban Style
"ORLAND PARK POLICE DISPATCHERS WANT OUT OF THIER UNION"
This headline, from the Southtown Star of 28 December 2007, speaks volumes. The dispatchers, along with the village's other public works employees, are all represented by AFSCME. The dispatchers claim the union does not represent them, and according to this article, they have attempted to withdraw from their union by filing a motion with the Illinois Labor Relations Board. They have been working without a contract since last May. The union disputes the allegations of the dispatchers and is preparing a response to the motion for separaration but a union spokesperson would not say why AFSCME insists on holding the dispatchers against their will. The piece also points to unrest between the dispatchers and the other public works employees who have very divergent interests but are lumped together for bargaining purposes. Apparently that has become a major sticking poin--the public works employees rejected a contract they felt too heavily favored dispatchers.
Anyone see any paralells here? Are we not stuck in a bargaining unit where we are way outnumbered? Anyone see divergent interests in OUR bargaining? Anyone think IBEW does not always represent OUR intersts? Or that it devotes more time, energy, and resources to its other clients, SBC/COMCAST etc?
Blogmaster will be watching the Orland Park case closely, but not with any optimism. The Executive Director of the Illinois Labor Relations Board stated that 8-10 union factions try to dissolve each year on grounds they are not being represented but these groups rarely, if ever, succeed. The reason, he goes on, is because keeping unions larger brings "a certain amount of stability to collective bargaining" and "once you have a collective bargaining unit and work is stable, the board usually doesn't like to pull those units out".
Good luck to our brethren in Orland Park. They are going to need it.
posted by CPDDispatch @ 12:00 AM
6 Comments:
Orland Park brothers and sisters:
We here at Chicago 911 are keeping our fingers crossed for you! Hope things work out.
Happy New Year.
Heard 311 got buried, they'll be in que for the next 2 days.lmao
I have to admit it's pretty funny, someone taping Andrew's picture to the angel's face on the top of the Christmas tree in the main lobby.
The best part is knowing that the 3rd floor and our poor attitude and moral problem isn't just confined to us. Obviously the parties who put up the tree has some problems too with our home away from home.
Yeah 311 got buried, not enough to be in que for the next two days though. It's crazy that we have these so called "IT Professionals" that work over here in this building getting paid top dollars and no one had the smarts to test our systems to make sure that everything would run smoothly once the year changed especially on one of our busiest nights. The problem could have been totally avoided. We share some of the same problems over here (overworked, understaffed, no mandatory OT though that has to suck).
With all the money spent in communications, its amazing how lousy our equipment is for emergency and non emergency lines.
What's with the lanquage bank?!
12 years ago it cost the tax payers( me ) 75 bucks a pop for each translation. We had access to well over 100 native tongues. Now we can't even get a polish interpreter in a city with more Poles than Warsaw!.
Best Wishes on your fight Orland Park..U of I Police Dispatchers are in a similar fight..Grouped with a clerical unit, what once was a department that strictly did campus policing is now city and statewide. Many people sworm and civillian do not realize that UIC's police are State Police officers ultimately having more jurisdiction than CPD. Their chief and commanders are all former CPD command staff and they run their department like the city.Sworn officers from other municipalities as well as CPD are taking the test and coming on board to UIC's police force. This being said, their dispatchers are doing 10 times the work they used to including monitoring CPD Zone 13 and responding to all calls in the 12th district that are in the campus area. Usually UIC's officers get there before CPD..So why don't their dispatchers get the pay or recognition they deserve. So that the old CPD command staff can keep bringing their retired buddies over to UIC and pay them an exorbitant amount of money which could be used to pay the dispatchers for the work.
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