Encouraging Progress on Protecting Mass. Details
After meeting last week with the Patrick administration, fellow law enforcement organizations and legislative representatives, IBCO leaders are growing more confident that the state’s proposal to use flagmen on construction details has a dim future.
IBCO Director David Bernard took part in a meeting at the Transportation Building to discuss developing standards for deciding which personnel should perform traffic control at construction sites. One of the most encouraging signs for continued use of law enforcement officers at such details involves the state’s prevailing wage, which would be about $38 an hour for detail work.
“Replacing officers with flagmen wouldn’t generate any real savings at that wage,” said Bernard. “It became evident that the governor and the legislature have no real appetite for changing the prevailing wage, so I suspect strongly that we won’t see any significant changes to current practice.”
In 90 days, the governor must give legislators a detailed report on the proposed policy and a realistic projection of costs and savings.
DLR Issues Complaint After IBCO Files Prohibited Practice Charge
The state’s Division of Labor Relations has issued a prohibited practice complaint against the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office after the IBCO reported an alleged violation involving forced overtime. A hearing on the case has been scheduled for later this year, at which the DLR will hear evidence and issue a decision.
The Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office made an oral agreement with the IBCO in the fall of 2006 to apply inverse seniority when assigning forced overtime shifts at the HOC. This policy was to apply to COs except for lieutenants and captains who serve as facility shift commanders. But in November 2007, management sent the union an email message that included the following:
Forced OT: I will discuss with Peter. It is my belief that I have informed you of our stance being that a [correction officer] would get forced before a Sergeant.
That statement from the Sheriff’s Office contradicted its earlier agreement with the IBCO, so IBCO attorney Timothy Bailey filed a charge of prohibited practice with the state’s Division of Labor Relations. The DLR found probable cause to believe that management had failed to bargain in good faith by issuing that statement, issued a complaint and scheduled a hearing on the matter for later this year.
Bailey said, “An oral agreement is just as binding as a written agreement. You can’t just arbitrarily violate an agreement, whether it’s oral or written. I look forward to seeing this case through to the hearing.”
IBCO Wins Reinstatement, $45K Settlements For Two Terminated COs
Two corrections officers from the Norfolk County House of Correction who were terminated for excessive absenteeism have won reinstatement and $45,000 each in settlements, thanks to the IBCO and union attorney Timothy Bailey.
The COs in question were longtime employees at Norfolk. Both had suffered ongoing medical ailments, but had provided the necessary medical documentation for their absences. They believed that they had nothing to worry about, until a former human resources director at the HOC fired them in late 2006 for what were termed “excessive absences.”
The IBCO grieved the terminations. When Attorney Bailey reviewed the documents involved in their cases, he discovered serious flaws in management’s justification for termination. For example, he discovered two letters from the same doctor excusing one CO. The language in both letters was identical, except for the date. The HR director approved one of those letters but rejected the other.
“The records definitely gave me the impression that the former human resources director had played fast and loose with the facts to justify those terminations,” said Bailey. “A single long absence was broken up into several individual absences without any apparent reason, so that she [human resources director] could hide behind ‘progressive discipline’; there were inconsistent standards applied to doctors’ letters. The whole thing didn’t pass the smell test.”
IBCO leaders knew the union’s case was strong and pushed for arbitration. Before arbitration, however, representatives from the office of Norfolk County Sheriff Michael Bellotti met with Attorney Bailey and IBCO Director David Bernard to discuss a resolution. Together, they reached an agreement that returned both COs to work and made $45,000 in settlement payments to each, as well.
“It was the IBCO’s insistence on taking this case to arbitration that pushed the sheriff’s office to consider settling,” said Bernard. “We had the resources to push all the way to arbitration and the experience to do it right, and to their credit, Sheriff Bellotti and his people saw that it was in everyone’s best interest to do right by these members. Now they’ve been restored, and sooner than they would have been if the arbitration had gone forward.”
