POLICE OFFICER OF THE YEAR AWARDS

For me and the Board, one of the highlights of the year for policing in Toronto is the Police Officer of the Year Awards.

This award "honours officers of the Toronto Police Service who have demonstrated exceptional skills, bravery, compassion and a deep commitment to making Toronto one of the safest cities in the world."

I believe that the vast majority of our police officers are dedicated professionals who demonstrate these qualities daily. And then there are those who go above and beyond their daily routine. The award by the Board of Trade, which began in 1967, signifies the community's appreciation of the exceptional acts of those who are chosen for these awards.

This year, the Awards are being held on Thursday June 2 at the Toronto Board of Trade, Downtown Centre. You can learn more about the evening and buy tickets here. The awards are being hosted by CBC's Dwight Drummond.
 
This year, for the second time, the Toronto Police Service Business Excellence Award will be presented as well. This award recognizes the invaluable contribution that enables the Toronto Police Service to work efficiently and effectively.

This week, Chief Bill Blair recorded a message on the Police Officer of the Year Awards. You can see it here.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PREMIER DALTON MCGUINTY

Dear Premier McGuinty,


I have read with great interest your public comments relating to the tentative agreement reached between the Toronto Police Association (TPA) and the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB).


With great respect, I must say that decisions made at the provincial level are largely responsible for this deal. The province makes the rules under which municipal police services boards bargain collective agreements. The province has repeatedly taken steps to set a pattern of steadily increasing costs in policing. It is in this context that we are left to negotiate a reasonable collective agreement.

No police service in the province bargains in isolation. The fact is that the terms and conditions of employment for police officers are set through pattern bargaining (mostly) or pattern arbitration (occasionally) amongst the largest police services. For example, arbitrators considering what to award police services in Durham, Sudbury, Hamilton and Ottawa look to settlements or arbitration awards in places like Toronto, the OPP or Peel.

Our province has a long history of driving up the costs of policing through deals given to the OPP.

For example, in a recent OPP contract, the pension plan was made much more generous than the pension plan that applies to all other police officers. It pays a pension based on the best three years rather than the best five. I understand that all of the past service costs for this change were paid for by the taxpayers. These changes will likely cost millions of public dollars. Other police associations are trying to bargain for the same treatment. The TPSB has said “no” to this twice so far – in 2008 and 2011.

For 2009 and 2010, the government has claimed that it achieved a lower increase for the OPP. In fact, the government temporarily increased OPP members’ retention pay by one percent for each of the two years in order to give the OPP a higher increase.

In 2010, the government gave the OPP, without arbitration, a 5.07% increase for 2011 (almost 2% higher than anyone else for this year). In addition, the government gave the OPP a guarantee of an across-the-board wage increase on March 1, 2014 (retroactive to January 1, 2014), which would make the OPP members the highest paid police officers in the province in 2014, regardless of cost. As a result, they will receive, at minimum, a 14.06% salary increase over four years (2011 to 2014). This has set the province wide police bargaining pattern.

Toronto's proposed agreement represents a cumulative increase of 11.5% over the four year period from 2011 to 2014 (two and one-half percent less than the OPP deal over the same period) – with no guarantee as to being the highest paid and no changes to the pension.

Turning to arbitration, the province has the ability to change the rules for arbitration. It has long been established that arbitrators replicate negotiated agreements. A municipality’s ability to pay as well as local and provincial economic conditions, which are among the criteria for arbitration set out in the Police Services Act, receive little, if any, consideration. The province has done nothing to change this. Repeated requests from municipalities, associations and police services across the province to fix this system have gone ignored.

Finally, it was the province which made retention pay a province-wide feature of police agreements by giving it to the OPP. Unlike in Toronto, OPP had absolutely no retention issue or requirement for retention pay. Other police services had settled their contracts after Toronto without giving it, but once the province made it a province wide feature, all of the other police services subsequently followed.

Of course, I welcome a debate about a proposed collective agreement where all of the proposed changes are public and can be discussed. I believe that our tentative agreement is a proper reflection of the current collective bargaining (and arbitration) environment.

Premier, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and share our ideas on how to make police bargaining more realistic and consistent with our economic reality. In the meantime, we will move forward with our tentative agreement, which is far more cost-effective and realistic than that of the OPP, and which was reached through the hard work of both our Board and the Toronto Police Association.

Yours truly,


Alok Mukherjee, Chair
Toronto Police Services Board

Cc: Mayor Rob Ford and Members of Toronto City Council
Members, Toronto Police Services Board



OPP Contract Facts:
• The recent OPP agreements are the product of negotiation and not arbitration.
• The 2011 agreement included a "highest paid" provision that regardless of cost, OPP will be the highest paid in Ontario on January 1, 2014. In 2010, an OPP first class constable’s end rate was $79,451.
• The new OPP contract gives a first class constable a 5.07% increase in 2011, which will bring their end rate to $83,483.
• Total OPP increase for 2011 to 2014 is a minimum of 14.06% with an ongoing guarantee to be the highest paid in the province in 2014.

TENTATIVE AGREEMENT REACHED

We are pleased that yesterday we reached a tentative agreement with the Toronto Police Association. 

You can read our joint statement here.

ELEVEN

That is how many days we have been in face-to-face contract negotiations with the Association.


We exchanged proposals in the context of:

• The Board’s accountability to the residents and taxpayers of the City of Toronto (the people who pay for policing),

• The fact that the City of Toronto is facing a nearly $800 million budget shortfall in 2012, and

• That about 90 percent of the Toronto Police Service’s 906 million dollar budget goes to salaries and benefits.

At the same time, we believe that our service members play an incredibly important role in keeping the city safe. Therefore, they deserve to be fairly compensated.

Sadly, in 11 days we were not able to reach a negotiated settlement. In fairness, this has been an expedited negotiations schedule. In previous years, this process has transpired over the course of at least a year.

Now, as per the process outlined in the collective agreements, we will head to mediation on April 16, 17 and 18.

Hopefully, with the help of a mediator, we will be able to reach a negotiated settlement. If not, we will advance to interest arbitration in late June 2011.

Stay tuned.

MICHIGAN STATE POLICE

Here is the statement from Director of the Michigan State Police and the USA Today story on the Michigan State Police's plan to close 21 posts across the state.

IN OZ

Police wages continue to be a topic of conversation in countries around the world, including Australia.

HOW RELUCTANTLY THE MIND CONSENTS TO REALITY

As the British author Norman Douglas once said, “How reluctantly the mind consents to reality!”

As I sit here in my seventh day of face-to-face contract negotiations with the Toronto Police Association, where we have made negligible progress, I cannot help but wonder if they were speaking about Mike McCormack, TPA President.

Around the world, communities are adapting to some harsh fiscal realities. Policing is not exempt.

In England and Wales, they are talking about wage reductions and laying off officers.

In Camden, NJ, they have laid off half of the police force.

And I know I don’t need to tell you what is happening with public services, including policing, in the states of Wisconsin and Ohio.

While things are not quite as dire here in Toronto, there are a few realities that all public sector employers, unions and associations MUST face:

1. The City of Toronto is facing a $744 million budget shortfall.
2. Public sector employers, unions and associations, must adapt to this and address the rising costs of public services, including policing.

That is the reality facing the Toronto Police Services Board and the residents of the City of Toronto as we try to achieve a fair collective agreement that strikes a balance between fair compensation for members and a fair deal for taxpayers and residents of Toronto.

Is it too much to hope that the Toronto Police Association will soon consent to join us in that reality?

 

 

 

While in England and Wales

The issue of police wages are top of mind for the British home secretary, Theresa May. She recently said that pay cuts for police officers are essential in order to minimise front line job losses at forces in England and Wales.

She went on to say that "There's no question that pay restraint and pay reform must form part of the package.  If you are going to find savings, pay is a good place to start”. 
"I want to protect police jobs and keep officers on the street, and we can only do that if we reform pay and conditions for all officers."

You can read the whole story and others here.

THE ARBITRATION TALK CONTINUES

Today's Toronto Star editorial focuses on Ontario's arbitration system.


Here is an excerpt:

"Labour relations can be extraordinarily complicated and there are variations on the final offer concept. How it should be applied to essential workers in Ontario’s public sector warrants extensive debate. But Queen’s Park should start that discussion. With 10,000 transit workers about to be declared essential, and the province deep in deficit, finding an improved arbitration system should be a priority."

Read the full article here.

ARBITRATION TALK

Across Ontario's emergency services sector there seems to be increased talk and media coverage on the issue of arbitrated awards. 

You can read the stories here,  here,  here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. 

PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “patience and fortitude conquer all things”.


This could not be clearer than in the current round of contract negotiations between the Toronto Police Services Board and the Toronto Police Association.

The Bargaining Committees met for four days this past week. In this time, we went back and forth on a number of non-monetary items from our proposals.

Anyone who has watched these negotiations in previous years knows that they are a long, slow dance involving much back and forth.

It is a dance that requires patience.

But, as per Emerson, this particular bargaining dance also requires fortitude.

The fortitude to enable the parties to reach an agreement which respects and adapts to the 2011 reality for all public services: deliver better services with a high level of accountability and transparency, and to do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

BUDGETS, SALARIES AND POLICE SERVICE……

Across the province, municipalities are at various stages of the budget process. For some, the process is complete and, for others, the process is only beginning.

What remains consistent is that whether the municipality has its own police service, like Toronto, is part of a regional service, like Mississauga or uses the Ontario Provincial Police, like Thunder Bay, the cost of policing and the rising cost of police service is a growing concern; in particular, the costs related to contract settlements.

This recent story in the Globe and Mail provides some background on the issue and an introduction to another issue we are certain to hear more about in the future – the recent Ontario Provincial Police contract settlement and the “Number 1” clause.

POLICE BARGAINING 101

Over the last few weeks there has been much discussion throughout the City regarding collective bargaining. The Police, the TTC and the City’s outside workers are all scheduled to be in collective bargaining at some point this year.  You can read about it here.   


The Toronto Police Services Board (the Board) has already commenced collective bargaining with the Toronto Police Association (the Association) which represents approximately 2100 civilian and 5600 uniform members of the Toronto Police Service. The Association’s current agreements expired on December 31, 2010.

Historically, the police collective bargaining has been a long drawn-out process, occurring over the course of a year or more. As with collective bargaining generally, the parties meet and work toward achieving a negotiated agreement. Built into the process are provisions for mediation and arbitration, to be used if the two sides cannot reach an agreement on their own.

With regard to the current round of bargaining, the bargaining teams for the Board and the Association exchanged proposals in late January, with bargaining scheduled to take place through the late winter and Spring 2011.


It is our hope that with this expedited schedule, we will be able to reach a negotiated agreement which meets the needs of residents and police service members.

The Board’s approach to the bargaining will continue to be based on two key considerations. First, members of the Toronto Police Service should be well paid. Second, we must be responsible to our community and be mindful of today's fiscal reality.

WINDSOR STAR

An interesting article on police bargaining from the Windsor Star. 

THE WORLD’S A TWITTER

Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter.
- Newsweek

Blogging and Tweeting.

In 2007, we launched this blog with the intention of providing readers with information on the Board, what we do and events related to policing. Since then we have posted over 100 blogs ranging from bargaining, to the United Way campaign and to the long gun registry.


Today, we join 190 million people around the world on Twitter..... you can follow us here.


And while you are following us, you can also follow a number of men and women in the Toronto Police Service.