Page 14 - October Newsletter

Financial Secretary’s Report
Grievances up, manpower down
It’s October in the City of Chicago, which will lead us into the holiday season, hopefully bringing us joyous times.
At the last Grievance Committee meeting, held on Sept. 21, we reviewed about 41 different griev- ances. All types of grievances are evaluated at the committee meetings. Some deal with seniority, where an officer has been passed over for a spot or detail and another officer with less seniority is placed into it improperly. There are also medical grievances involving an IOD incorrectly catego-
rized as just medical or a disagreement on medical treatment services. One of the most frequent grievances issued is for an inordinate amount of suspension time being given to officers for infractions.
These are just general explanations of an intricate but ex- tremely important process. I have found that cases can be fought and won on seemingly the most minor of details. This is why I have rearranged some of the previous processes of the Grievance Committee. I am now involving all the committee members in a majority of the files we receive here at the union, in this way covering all of our options. You can go to the FOP website to see the list of the good officers currently on the Grievance Committee. After our meeting on the 21st, we rec- ommended withdrawing seven grievances, deferring four and going forward with 30 of them. It’s more than last month, but we must show the City we are willing to fight their mistakes and that they must begin to treat the officers with competency and respect.
We also held an Awards Committee meeting on Sept. 29 and
approved several well-deserved awards for the General Meeting on Oct. 17.
On all of my visits to the districts for roll calls, one of the ma- jor complaints is manpower. The districts are being filled with fewer and fewer officers. When they combined districts a few years ago, you would have thought there would be an increased amount of officers in the districts that swallowed up the others. All that is being seen is fewer officers doing more work. The De- partment cannot hide the fact that the City is trying to reduce the size of its force to save money, thus sacrificing the safety of the citizens and the security of our neighborhoods. The cancel- ling of days off proves the Department is suffering from a short- fall of officers but is instead twisting numbers around and say- ing everything is wonderful. They should instead be informing the public of the seriousness of the manpower shortage.
It’s a no-no for anyone to state there aren’t enough officers to do the job properly. Someone actually quoted a college research study that showed you don’t need that many officers to do the job. Obviously, it was no one who works and lives on the street. Again, as I stated in previous articles, officers need to be seen on a daily basis to show the criminal element we are present. The millions of dollars they spend on cameras is not the solution. Cameras can only watch as you are accosted, while the pres- ence of Police Officers can physically stop the crime. We are the Midwest — we don’t waste our time with foolish idealisms to solve our problems. We need common-sense hands-on solu- tions to reach our goals. Let’s believe that the elected officials of our town will use these principles to assist us in keeping our
City safe. d
MICHAEL GARZA
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14 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2017