Public Employee Press

Investigators' grievance nets $100,000

Members of Local 1113 will share a total of more than $100,000 in the settlement of longstanding out-of-title-work grievances against the New York Police Dept.

"This is a win-win for everybody involved," said Deborah Pitts, president of Finance Administrative Employees and City Investigators Local 1113.

Of the 23 active Investigators who had been doing the work of higher-paid Associate Investigators, nine will get $1,500 lump sum payments and four will get the substantial difference in pay between the two titles, retroactive to 2006 when their grievance was filed.

In addition, as the grievances proceeded, a number of the Investigators passed the civil service exam for Associate Investigator and received promotions to the higher title. In the end, all the grievants received either lump sums, back pay or promotions.

"The Police Dept. did the right thing by compensating our members," said Pitts.

The AIs do more difficult work with less supervision, but for many years, the Police Dept. had assigned the Investigators the responsibilities of AIs. "It was on this basis that we negotiated the back money," said DC 37 Attorney Alan Brown.

After members told the union they were doing the more difficult tasks, the local looked into the situation, Council Rep Madonna Knight filed their grievances and Brown took the cases to arbitration. After several days of arbitration hearings, the parties entered into the discussions that led to the settlement.

"The negotiations took a long time, because both sides worked very hard to negotiate a fair deal for the Investigators," said Knight.

"The members stuck together and stuck it out," said Pitts. "When we started, we told members not to be afraid to come forward. Everyone hung in there and we are very proud of them."