Medical Time

Here we go again. Blogmaster hears that management is once again examining use of medical time with an eye on reducing the daily medical roll, which perhaps is a laudable goal in ordinary workplaces. The type of workplaces that do not operate with severe and critical staffing shortages. Workplaces that are not run 24/7 with a 6 day workweek all the time. Workplaces that are flexible and accommodating with their employees. Workplaces where employees are not consistently overworked and stressed out. Workplaces that don't see their employees being removed by ambulance with alarming regularity. And reducing medical roll may also make a lot of sense in a workplace that does not contractually provide a municipal benefit of 12 sick days annually.

The preferred method of management, it seems (and really, we have been down this road before), is to scare, punish, force, and suspend people for showing up for work no matter what. In so doing, all the old tricks are being pulled from the oh-so-old hat including charging pcos with taking medical day(s) in conjunction with one's day off, on the weekends, going sick no pay. It seems the city personnel rules are sufficiently vague as to allow management to come up with some of the more ridiculous charges, like being sick no pay for as little as an hour and going home sick--with or without sick time--after making a good faith effort to show up for work. In one particular incident, a pco was suspended for being sick no pay after being removed to a hospital by cfd ambulance.

Memo to management: it hasn't worked before and it isn't going to work now. All these tactics do is lower morale and tie up resources better utilized elsewhere, especially when high ranking suits are suddenly showing up at the homes of civilian pcos escorted by cpd--a practice Blogmaster thought was confined to sworn personnel. Watch managers, spcos, and watch secretaries are not the personnel department, they are not human resources people, and they are not always discreet. Making them responsible for monitoring, tracking, and ultimately punishing/disciplining people for how they use medical time is a bad, bad, bad idea. That is a job for human resources which, ideally, would be working to not only track use of medical time, but to identify sources of potential problems and make recommendations to employees and management for corrective actions, make suggestions, or spot troubled employees and try to get them some help. Punishment should always be the last resort.

Blogmaster wants to remind the city and the suits that medical time is a city issued benefit, contractually protected and bargained for. Pcos who have sick time should not be punished or harrassed for using it. If the city and suits really want to decrease the medical rolls they ought to be putting their considerable talents (ahem) into forcing the staffing issue with downtown and grant time due when it requested so that pcos dont use medical time for special occasions (this mostly requires a hireback on overtime, so dont ever count on it). And finally, those in the know realize that the medical rolls rarely have any big impact on overtime (don't believe otherwise, despite the crap management spews). Recall christmas eve when no one, NOT A SINGLE PCO, was on the medical for 3rd watch/pmp and still over 15people were mandated....that could not be blamed on the medical, but is a direct result of staffing shortage and lack of the voluntary overtime which runs the oemc.