PAX Centurion - January / February 2014

Page 22 • PAX CENTURION • January/February 2014 617-989-BPPA (2772) Stop by our store located at 53 Plain Street (rear) in Braintree or call us at (781) 843-5293. When your business or personal needs require custom embroidery or screen printing,we hope you choose The Embroidery Clinic for high quality and competitive pricing. A couple of things By Chris Broderick, D4 Representative H ere we are some 500 or so days passed when we began our Arbitration, not to mention the years of work the BPPA put into bargaining preceding theArbitration on just this bargaining cycle. The pay rate is right (for most people, but not every- one- yet). The City and Department have implemented the award (at least most of it but not all of it). The folks at the Payroll Department and the City Treasury are working on retro money. I imagine it to be a complicated process with a lot of moving parts and all reports are that there is a shortage of staff in the Payroll Department. They are unable to give us a target date yet and knowing cops I believe that is prudent of Payroll. If they go a minute over a self-imposed deadline the phone ringing alone would delay it two more weeks. It’s coming… sooner or later. I know our wives, husbands and kids have a ton of great ideas on how to spend it. I know my personal list would require somewhere around $60,000 in retro to satisfy so I’ll have to scale my list back when it does eventually get here. We have to be patient. Though they are under no strict time line per theAward as long as they are reasonably working to get the payment to the entire patrol force in a reasonable period of time then it seems reasonable. Moving on, there are some things going on right now that we should be paying attention to other than money. Keeping in mind that this Award was ultimately written by a third party independent Arbi- trator; there are some “different” interpretations of what theArbitra- tors intent was. This has led to a number of meetings between BPPA Leadership and the Bargaining Committee with the Department and City Labor Team. We’ve had to dissect theAward line by line trying to agree on what it says. Shockingly, it has been difficult for the BPPA and City of Boston to agree quickly and without debate over issues that we could not agree on for years and therefore brought to a third party. Since the December 4 th Council vote and all of these meet- ings between the parties we are slowly making some progress. I think we’ll resolve some of the issues and be forced to fight, grieve and/ or litigate on others. If you believe you have been wronged or denied a right or benefit covered under the CBA let the Union know. The Comp Day section is new and confusing. If you were not afforded the experience of sitting in the room at the table while each point was dis- cussed and re-discussed you may not completely grasp it at first. Not every Rep, Chief Clerk or Captain were there when this all happened. Please work with these people, especially your Rep. They may have to reach out to someone for the answer and the answer may not be what you want to hear but you do deserve a definitive answer if you don’t agree with your Captain’s interpretation. The last thing is the exam. I’m sure you have all heard the plan is a one hundred question technical exam worth 40% of your grade given in the summer with the 75% highest scorers moving on to Phase Two made up of two Oral Boards and an undeterminedWritten Compo- nent that will make up another 40% of your score. The other 20% will be made up of a formula based on your Education and Experi- ence. I don’t believe that means experience in assignments but experi- ence in Policing and related functions generally with the BPD or other agencies. My understanding is Boston time will carry a greater weight than other agencies. There has been a lot of talk about why the percentages are different and who will give what Oral Board and who See Things on page 29