Monday, July 5, 2010

So, How Is Your Work For Free Day Going?

Today is the 3rd day this year for the commissioners new "Work For No Pay" program.

Along side us, the city of Atlanta has approved the hiring of 100 additional police officers and a 3.5 percent pay raise.

Who loves ya baby?

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great.....I did 10% of the work that I normally would have done!

Anonymous said...

While it sucks to work on the holiday and to get shorted on are pay. We all knew it was coming and it was because of downtown Decatur. I was just woundering how many people with a "set work week" had to come in on there off day? Work 4pm to 2am? Gee you guys in uniform do have it tuff. Oh,wait that happened the month of April,part of May. Oh lets not forget about November,Dec, and the first week in Jan. See what am getting at. Oh and thanks to the Marshals units that back all of us everytime they hear a hot call-who stood out there for 36 plus hours when Barker and Bryant were shot. How soon we forget, or is it because we just werent even working here yet.
You see am just trying to get some of you guys to think of the whole picture before just get on here and just make all of us look bad. We have a long way to get this place back the way it was before I was here and a lot of you guys too. But it starts with us. Stay safe and take pride of are job.

Anonymous said...

Can't believe you folks are taking this crap from those thieves. Its illegal what they are doing.

Anonymous said...

Hey anon 2: we with set off days or who are lucky enough to have Sunday and Mondays off, still get hit with a 10 percent pay reduction too.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the CEO drivers have TAKE HOME CARS? I bet they do.

Anonymous said...

Hey Anon #1 I agree with you...but I do 10% less everyday... Screw those theives..

Cap'n Seamus Buttwipe said...

It was great!!!! Until I drove by the brand new Redan recreation center and the new recreation center at Exchange park. There goes your holiday pay hard at work!!!

Anonymous said...

Or you can just use county time to do personal stuff like a North Net/Icp officer did by getting a root canal done while on duty a few months ago.

Anonymous said...

I read Anon2's post, and I have no idea what the heck they are trying to say. It seems to be a series of unrelated, half-formed thoughts that they spew, to then stand back and say, "there, what do you think about that?" The grammar is atrocious and I hope this person is not a DeKalb County Police Officer in any capacity. "You guys in uniform" indeed.

The fact remains that working for no pay makes no one happy. Most of us realize that the economy is in the dumps, and are happy to have jobs. But a furlough should be a furlough. It should be a day spent with family or whatever you choose not an accounting trick that forces you into life threatening situations for absolutely no compensation of any kind. Since we have to drive our POVs into work, we are actually paying to risk our lives on the holidays. This is made worse by the fact that those who implemented the "free labor" program suffer no such penalty. Their pay is not one penny less that it was 2 years ago.

What can you do but grin, bear it and hope for better days? As a wise poster once said "Stay safe and take pride in are job."

Anonymous said...

You get what you pay for. I'm on the road strictly to answer 911 dispatches.

Anonymous said...

atleast everyone will love DKPD now. The secret to having citizens who love police in that city is to pay them less i guess...

low payed officers = officers that only answer calls they are dispatched to..which means very minimal tickets...which is 99 percent of the reason why 99 percent of ppl hate cops.

if every cop refused to write tickets and only responded to life threatening emergency's, women would be in line to have our babies and the news crews would be on their knees waiting for the cheese to drop off the split of our jeans.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the 10 percent less work. Just answer calls and that's it. No tickets, no roadblocks, no speeches to neighborhood associations, etc, simply answer my calls, make arrests and issue citations (based on the call) and if you want me to work traffic. I will sit there with a my lights flashing reading a book and eating lunch. I'm not bringing you all anymore money. You are lucky i'm not doing with Durrett did and go home in my patrol car and tend to the family while on duty.

Anonymous said...

It's called a blue flu, people. If you want the county to listen to you something drastic has to be done.

Anonymous said...

Well once again young fellas we are getting it with no lube. Did anyone hear about the County fireman who lives in Burrells neighborhood who was out on a walk and decided to go by the "good ol" CEO's house and let him know how he felt about being ripped off? Sorry I mean being furloughed....Heard he got 10-42'd is this true? I say we all march on over to his house, and to each BOC members house and let them know how we feel, this is not right they are stealing from us and getting away with it. They sure can't fire us all....this place would be a bigger war zone than it already is. I say come in answer your calls.....forget tickets, forget POAP's on the BOC's houses, parks, and libraries....they don't appreciate what we do, they will continue to take until there is no more to take....

Anonymous said...

I hope that the Chief will speak to the troops for morale purposes. We need to hear something from our leader. New ideas, programs,grants, detail etc.
We know you are the man for the job,we just need some encouragement and direction

Anonymous said...

It is sad to read this blog sometimes. None of us became police officers to be rich, we did it to serve the community. If you need furloughs as a excuse not to do work, well your sorry ass wasn't going to do any work any way. We are lucky we aren't going to be furloughed for six months like APD was last year. Be a professional and do your job. The country is going through a recession and some of you are mad about a furlough when they could do layoffs. Guess what, the first to be laid off will be you new officers who can't police and aren't going to learn because you want to hide behind a church instead of jumping calls and doing traffic stops to get the experience you need.

Anonymous said...

I truly blame you. The police officers. Instead of standing up and fighting for what you believe in, you make a got-damn blog so you can b*tch like the unmotivated wusses many dekalb officers are now turning into.
Why don't you get out there and fight for your RIGHTS. FIGHT for your right to take PRIDE in your work and be compensated. I am telling you the truth - if you don't help yourselves; no one will. Because the public? we don't care..and those of us that do..we don't care enough to change any of your problems..we got our own..thats why we call you guys ;)
Get out there and FIGHT. Remember academy? IF YOU DON'T FIGHT - YOUR DEAD! and if you don't fight for your pride - your line of work..then you have died every time you begin your tour of duty.
No more b*tching... DO SOMETHING. SCREAM! YELL! RAISE HELL! NEW DEKALB COUNTY SLOGAN FOR CHANGE! SCREAM! YELL! RAISE HELL!!!

Anonymous said...

9:38 Anon: You're dead wrong. The public DOES care. Yeah, we got our own problems, but don't you understand that we're all inextricably linked? If we don't help and support our officers, it WILL become another one of our problems. Your attitude is frightening. At least I know if I were in trouble and needed your help, you wouldn't be there. Not your problem.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone spoken to a Labor Lawyer yet????? It does not sound consistent with FLSA to require you to work for no pay. Does no one have the gumption to look into the legality of this issue. Might be time someone took the step!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Everyone wants to complain about what is going on but nobody wants to say anything. Okay here is what needs to happen. Call the 46 news or channel 2 news and tell them to investigate what is happening to you guys. If they investigate and find that what they are doing with your pay is illegal then you can sue for back pay for the holidays. If they find that is not illegal then deal with it. I have one more thing to say. We do care about the work you do and have called the BOC bur just like you they do not listen to us. I attended one meeting a few months back and noticed that one of the BOC members had their eyes closed when a citizen spoke. This tells me they don't care what we say either. We need to clean house here in DeKalb and start over with all new BOC members who care about the county and who will protect us by providing well trained and paid what they deserve. I want to say Thank you to the Police and Firefighters for all you do it is noticed.


DeKalb Citizen

Anonymous said...

Dekalb Citizen: "Nobody wants to say anything" - then step up to the plate and tell which RUDE BOC member chose to take a nap while a citizen spoke. Practice what you preach - thanks.
Also a Dekalb Citizen

Anonymous said...

Well, If no one wants to say anything, you will get what you are given.....
I asked the question: Has anyone spoken to a Labor Lawyer...???
No officer has replied to that question which tells me that no one has. What that tells the county is that you won't do anything about the situation (except whine) and they are free to continue their current practice. The "DeKalb Citizen" is right, do something even if it is just contact the media to report your situation. I would seek the counsel of an attorney to find out if what they are doing is legal. If not, act on it, but if it is then you will have to deal with it the same way I (and others) had to deal with it when the county gave large pay raises to some while others got a minimal raise. That was a few years ago. We sued and lost but at least we did something. All I am hearing is whining but I see no action... If you won't stand up for yourselves no else else will. Didn't your momma teach you that?????

Anonymous said...

By law employees can be reduced to minimum wage as is happening to California State employees. Of course the end result of that would be no police officers patrolling Dekalb Co. as is almost the case now.

Anonymous said...

From a Uniform, Rank and File officer standpoint....

I go to work, I punch the clock and answer 911 calls.

What happened to the Uniform officer?

I've seen us (the uniform officers without special cars, special meeting rooms, special titles, etc....) go from a Proactive group to a Passive group of neutered rent-a-cops..... that are seen and treated as nothing more than report takers and lackeys.

As the uniform officers head over the cliff, I wonder....Will we ever hit the bottom? How much further can we drop?

Other than our nuts being cut off and the addition of an over abundance of special units that are responsible for everything outside responding to 911 calls and writing reports....Has anything changed?

All I see ahead of us is darkness.....Pitch black darkness. The future of the uniform officer at Dekalb is bleak.

Spend two years in uniform and transfer...uniform is a thankless, dead end slot.

Anonymous said...

Why won't all the Chiefs get together and hold a press conference denouncing the CEO's pay reduction on holidays? Leadership from the top, right? All Chief OBrien has to do is produce a manpower plan to show the public that there will not be a reduction of police services by giving the officers a furlough day (3 day work week) as opposed to a reduction in pay and making us work four days. All he has to do is supplement manpower by having SOD, ICP/NET, etc, supplement the watches during that holiday pay period. Is it asking to much for us to ask the Chiefs to stick their necks out for us? What is Ellis going to do, get rid of the entire command staff?

Anonymous said...

Here is a better way to fight back. Dont stop doing the job that you took an oath to do, but just stop doing the extra stuff without making the county pay for it. I.E., when a supervisor calls you while you are off to talk about something work related then submit an OT slip. Stop using your personal cell phone at work to conduct county business. If you have to call CID then go OS and go to the precinct to call them. Dont even use your personal cell phone to call your supervisors. Make them 59 with you or go to nearest pay phone and have them call you there. Supply on your off time - OT slip. You pull out on something on your way to/from work - OT slip. Let's stop making things so comfortable for the department. Hell, they treat us like hourly employees by having us clock in and out, so let's start acting like hourly employees.

Anonymous said...

Don't think your'e safe as a retiree either. Look at the landmark case Illinois just won that changes current employee pension collection age from 55 to 65 and greatly reduces current retirees payout. This will almost CERTAINLY filter to the south and compounded with the gross incompetence of Dekalb management with the "who cares" attitude of its employees you might as well file bankruptcy now.