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Writing
a Grievance
"An employee's formal complaint regarding working conditions or failure by management to stick to its contract with the employee."
In
order for a grievance to be successful you must be able to cite a
specific clause in your contract that you feel the Administration is in
violation of. In the alternative you can cite a violation of
Policy & Procedures or Rules and Regulations which are usually
incorporated in your contract. Many issues that officers want
to grieve are deemed by the Administration to be "managerial
prerogative" and therefore, the grievance is denied. Is this
really the case?
Any officer can file a grievance, he does not need the Union's permission prior to filing. It is only when the grievances reaches the Arbitration level that the Union members will be asked to vote on "financing" the grievance through the Arbitration process. If you have a strong union, you will surely receive strong support from the very beginning of the process. Unfortunately, not all unions are strong and it may take the filing of the grievance to spark hope and support from your union. Do not be discouraged, a good grievance will carry itself.
Officers that are
contemplating
writing a grievance should start by going through their Department's
Policy & Procedure Manual to determine which policies and
procedures apply to the situation they are grieving. Officers
should request that their Union post a copy of these on the Union's
website, or in the alternative they should be in a common area,
accessible to all officers in the Department. An officer
cannot be disciplined for not following policy that he is not aware
exists, therefore, this information must be disseminated to ALL
officers, not just the IAB.
Officers may be
surprised to find
Policies & Procedures which have been adopted that very few
others are aware of. An example of this is the Corruption Policy
which many Departments adopted at the suggestion of the Chief's
Association to dispel public fears of corruption. What many
Chief's did not realize is that this policy lays the foundation for
grieving lateral transfers. A thorough review of the
Department's Policy & Procedures will also be beneficial in
defending disciplinary matters.
After going
through the Policy
& Procedures, and pulling copies of those that apply to the
issue you are grieving, you should then move to the Contract and site
any contractual paragraphs that apply. Do
not dismay if you can not find the "exact" situation that you wish to
grieve, a vague reference is good enough to warrant "interpretation"
and bring the grievance.
Keep in mind that grievances are usually not settled in the lower ranks. This is simply because a Sgt. does not have the authority to correct the issues. Best case scenario is that the Sgt. states in his written response to you that he agrees with your position but does not have the authority to take corrective action and will move the grievance up the chain of command.
Make yourself
thoroughly aware of your grievance procedure both contractually and
through your Rules & Regulations. Chances are that
there are two separate ones. Follow
the Contract.
Many good grievances get dismissed on technicalities and the
Administration will do its bests to see that you make a technical
error. No matter what they tell you to do, Follow the Contract,
step by step. Stay in your time frame and make sure you copy
every Administrator that you are contractually obligated to copy along
the way. Many Administrators will refuse to respond to you in
writing, if this occurs, wait the appropriate amount of time as defined
in your contract and move on to the next level.
More than likely, the Chief has the final say and will direct those under him to answer in a specific manner and to pass the grievance up through the chain of command to his/her attention. Those officers filing a grievance should expect that it will be denied up to the Chief of Police and not expect to gain relief prior to the grievance reaching the Chief's level. The officer can also expect the Chief to be thoroughly agitated by that point in time and to deny the grievance.
Once denied by
the Chief of Police
the grievance will proceed to the Mayor or governing administration
(Department of Public Safety) which will be the first true opportunity
to have the matter settled. Simultaneously, at this point,
retaliation and harassment will more than likely
begin/continue. It is very
important to thoroughly document these events with dates, times, names
of officers involved and nature of event and to promptly grieve these
incidents as "retaliation for writing your
grievance". All Contracts have a retaliation clause.
Common Forms of Retaliation include:
* Giving the officer all the nonsense and nuisance calls;
* Giving the officer all/every call;
* Denying time off;
* Responding to the officer's home to confirm that he/she is sick when he calls out;
* Passing over the officer for overtime assignments;
* Patrolling the officer's neighborhood;
* Harassing the officer's friends causing alienation, isolation and a hostile work environment;
* Writing up the officer for equipment violations and other nuisance charges;
These
acts of retaliation on the part of the Administration are far more
severe than the issue being grieved. Retaliation for filing a
grievance is the equivalent of being untruthful during an internal
affairs investigation and can lead to just as severe consequences for
the Administration. Make sure you document and grieve each
and every instance.