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Stan Goertzen
- Police contract talks
get political
Goertzen attempts to debunk accusations association is inflexible
Rod Nickel, The StarPhoenix,
April 22, 2005
The Saskatoon City Police Association
has taken contract talks into the political arena in an attempt
to debunk accusations that its inflexibility has caused the current
impasse.
But Coun. Myles Heidt, a police
commissioner, counters that the commission has been more willing
to compromise than the association, having already dropped a
contentious demand for a 10-hour shift.
In a letter delivered Thursday
to city councillors and police commissioners, association president
Const. Stan Goertzen writes that the city negotiating team and
the association had the basis of a deal as early in talks as
last summer -- before the city team withdrew it.
"We were 30 minutes from
an agreement in principle," Goertzen said in an interview.
The city bargaining team, which
includes senior police administration, originally proposed a
12-hour shift that would have put more officers on the streets
overnight on weekends, meeting a key city council demand.
The association expressed interest,
but the police service inexplicably withdrew it the same day,
the letter says. "Throughout bargaining and more recently
during the city budget process, false or misinformed comments
about bargaining and the police association have been made by
different city representatives," Goertzen writes.
"This is disappointing
because it has had a negative effect on the way some of the current
bargaining has been conducted. Some of the public comments have
only served to entrench issues that should have been dealt with
in bargaining. . . . The Saskatoon City Police Association has
never rejected the idea of putting more officers on the street
during busy times and we have been willing to discuss some viable
changes to shifting to accomplish this."
Goertzen said criticism of
the force has hit home.
"It's the front-line guys
really getting hammered right now."
The association doesn't want
to negotiate publicly but has grown tired of criticism based
on false information, his letter says.
Chief Russ Sabo declined to
talk about specifics of proposals in the letter, which also circulated
through the police station Thursday.
But he confirmed the police
service is not insisting on a 10-hour shift, a demand that replaced
the 12-hour shift proposal that was withdrawn.
"At this point in time,
I am focused on getting a flexible shift that will allow us to
meet the needs of the service and effect policing in this community
to obviously improve public safety," Sabo said. "I
am not focused on 10-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts, eight-hour
shifts. They all have merits. I want to make sure we can deploy
officers where crime is the highest and meet the demand for calls."
Unions have the legal right
to communicate with their employers, Sabo said, but added he's
never seen a police association take action like this before.
Heidt says the fact the commission
backed off its 10-hour shift demand months ago shows it's remained
flexible.
"We've looked at all things.
We've moved. We were locked in pretty good on the 10-hour shifting.
Now we've even given that up."
In his letter, Goertzen writes
that negotiations drifted away from their publicly stated goal.
"What the Saskatoon City
Police Association has witnessed at the bargaining table has
nothing to do with the city wanting more officers on the street.
It is simply an attack on one of the few positive aspects of
being a police officer in Saskatoon -- equal 12-hour shifting
for front-line police officers," Goertzen writes.
Officers currently work four
days, then have four days off working 12-hour shifts. This schedule
saves the force in overtime and shift premium costs, the association
maintains. It's also a benefit that officers consider essential
to their well-being.
Goertzen adds the front-line
officers working 12-hour shifts account for only half of the
force. Most others already work 10-hour shifts, Goertzen said.
He downplayed the seriousness
of the city negotiating team's latest proposal, since it would
force some officers to log 72 hours some weeks.
"This is a 12-hour shift
that no one would work," he said in an interview. "They've
offered something they know is unpalatable."
Mayor Don Atchison, the police
commission chair, said he'd be pleased to learn the association
is not as rigid as believed. He read the letter Thursday afternoon.
"That would be music to
my ears. We're going to have to talk to our negotiating team
to follow up on these comments to verify them, correct or incorrect."
The bargaining impasse had
overtones on city council's decision this month to reject the
police budget, causing deep cuts to new staffing plans. Council
had warned the police service a year earlier when it approved
a large budget increase that it expected more weekend coverage.
TIMELINE OF PROPOSALS
A timeline of proposals between
the Saskatoon City Police Association and the city's negotiating
team:
March 31, 2004: The contract
expires.
Summer 2004: The city negotiating
team proposes hiring 16 new constables to form two new 12-hour
shifts of eight officers each, according to the association.
The result would have been more coverage Thursday, Friday and
Saturday nights one week, then additional officers out Wednesday
through Saturday nights the following week. The shift not on
night duty in any given week would bolster daytime policing to
cover officers who are off duty for illness, at training or court.
The police association was
interested in this proposal, but after a break in talks, the
city negotiating team withdrew it the same day.
The police service followed
up this offer with later proposals reinstating the contentious
10-hour shift demand, according to the association.
December 2004: The city negotiating
team makes a new offer again based on keeping the 12-hour shift.
It works around a five-week rotation in which a percentage of
front-line officers work 72 hours a week for two of those weeks
-- which is unacceptable to the association.
The trade-off is more time
off for the officers in one of the weeks.
The association says it submitted
a counter-proposal the same day, based on the withdrawn city
proposal from summer 2004 with minor changes.
Since conciliation subsequently
failed in December, the two sides haven't met face to face.
Ran with fact box "TIMELINE
OF PROPOSALS " which has been appended to the story.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Police bitterness
hurts force: union
Darren Bernhardt, The StarPhoenix,
November 15, 2004
The firing of Saskatoon cops
Larry Hartwig and Bradley Senger will help heal relations with
the aboriginal community but the decision has spawned a bitterness
that threatens the city police force internally, says the police
union.
"The feeling in our building
right now is not very good," Saskatoon City Police Association
president Stan Goertzen said after a long pause when asked about
the mood in the downtown headquarters.
"These guys (Hartwig and
Senger) didn't do anything, they didn't have any contact with
Neil Stonechild and the feeling inside is, 'Why would you (management)
do something that we believe is morally wrong -- punish two innocent
people so that it appeases some special interest group?'
"Our members don't believe
you can do something morally wrong and make it politically right
like the chief is trying to do."
Chief Russell Sabo announced
the dismissal of the two constables on Friday, saying they "are
each unsuitable for police service by reason of their conduct"
in connection with the 1990 disappearance of the 17-year-old
Stonechild, whose frozen body was found two days later in a field
on the city's outskirts.
Sabo fired the officers for
"failing to diligently and promptly report" information
or evidence to officials about Stonechild being in their custody
on Nov. 24, 1990, the frigid night the 17-year-old went missing.
Both officers have denied any connection to the teen's death
and are planning to request separate hearings into Sabo's decision.
As a result of the firings,
many officers don't feel supported by their chief and are considering
quitting the force, Goertzen said. In fact, two officers have
already turned in resignation notices -- one of those has decided
to retrain as a dentist instead.
Aside from leadership, officers'
concerns include staffing levels, public safety issues in terms
of equipment and deployment and better training, said Goertzen.
"Officer retention is
going to be a problem. Even attracting officers is already a
problem," he said, noting it's not going to change until
there's somebody new at the top. "Somebody that we respect."
Another officer went on television
recently with his identity shielded, to discuss the resentment
with management.
"Kiss my ass, Russ,"
another officer, who wished to be unnamed, told The StarPhoenix.
In 1990, the force said Stonechild
had died after trying to walk to an adult jail to turn himself
in for running away from a youth home. It was left at that until
the death was reviewed by an RCMP task force, formed in 2000
to investigate the Saskatoon police force after the frozen bodies
of two aboriginal men were found on the city's outskirts and
a third man came forward to say that officers had dropped him
off on Saskatoon's fringes as well.
Two police officers were found
guilty of unlawfully confining that man, Darrell Night. They
served time and were fired from the force.
On Oct. 26, a report from a
public inquiry into Stonechild's death was released, rejecting
the repeated claims that Hartwig and Senger had no dealings with
Stonechild on the night he disappeared.
In his report, Justice David
Wright wrote the case reminded him of the "chasm that separates
aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in this city and province."
The inquiry didn't assign blame for his death and Saskatchewan
Justice Minister Frank Quennell has said there isn't enough evidence
to lay charges against Hartwig and Senger.
But Sabo was convinced by Wright's
findings and dismissed the officers for "failing to diligently
and promptly report" information or evidence to officials
about Stonechild being in their custody the night he went missing.
Colin Boyd, a U of S ethics
professor, is concerned about officers speaking out anonymously,
saying it may do more harm than good for the union trying to
get its message across. Rather than officers in uniform stating
their case, the spokespeople have been retired members or individuals
with disguised voices and hidden identities.
"Seeing someone in silhouette
on TV, speaking anonymously, reminds you far more of criminals
than of police," he said. "It's not a good image to
have."
Boyd believes Sabo's decision,
however one feels about it, at least brought some resolution
to the matter. "It was good to finally see, after 10 days
(since the release of the Wright report), somebody finally take
a leadership position, which is what a number of people were
asking him to do," Boyd said.
"At least he has managed
to get the ship back on course."
But there are still some rough
waters ahead with the stirrings in "that internal culture"
of the force, he added.
Lawrence Joseph, vice-chief
of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, applauded Sabo's
decision, calling it the start of a long-needed "rebuilding"
process between aboriginals and the police force.
"For him to acknowledge
the Wright report and apologize to the (Stonechild) family and
take action with the officers, it's a big, huge step. We feel
we have been validated," Joseph said Sunday. "Now healing
can begin -- for Indian people and the police. I do feel for
the police force because they are under public scrutiny and I
think we need to look at programs so individual officers can
get the help they need personally because they have issues too.
"They need to know the
Indian people of Saskatchewan don't hate them and are not going
to disrespect them because they wear that uniform."
Not everyone is so optimistic.
"People are still going
to be leery of them (police). These guys got caught, that's all,"
said a woman at the Barry Hotel in Riversdale, a neighbourhood
with a high aboriginal population.
"I'm hearing that there
is still a lot of pain in the community and I don't know that
most people are generally hopeful," said Helen Smith-McIntyre,
chair of the community-based Advisory Committee on Diversity.
"There has to be a lot of healing, a lot of listening and
a lot of building bridges."
The committee offers three-day
workshops for officers in which sensitivity issues are discussed
as well as present policies and procedurees on the force.
"We work at building understanding
and building empathy," said Smith-McIntyre, noting the next
session begins today at Wanuskewin, the 6,000 year-old aboriginal
heritage site north of the city.
But Sabo was convinced by Wright's
findings and dismissed the officers for "failing to diligently
and promptly report" information or evidence to officials
about Stonechild being in their custody the night he went missing.
Colin Boyd, a U of S ethics
professor, is concerned about officers speaking out anonymously,
saying it may do more harm than good for the union trying to
get its message across.
Rather than officers in uniform
stating their case, the spokespeople have been retired members
or individuals with disguised voices and hidden identities.
"Seeing someone in silhouette
on TV, speaking anonymously, reminds you far more of criminals
than of police," he said.
"It's not a good image
to have."
Boyd believes Sabo's decision,
however one feels about it, at least brought some resolution
to the matter.
"It was good to finally
see, after 10 days (since the release of the Wright report),
somebody finally take a leadership position, which is what a
number of people were asking him to do," Boyd said.
"At least he has managed
to get the ship back on course."
But there are still some rough
waters ahead with the stirrings in "that internal culture"
of the force, he added.
Lawrence Joseph, vice-chief
of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, applauded Sabo's
decision, calling it the start of a long-needed "rebuilding"
process between aboriginals and the police force.
"For him to acknowledge
the Wright report and apologize to the (Stonechild) family and
take action with the officers, it's a big, huge step.
"We feel we have been
validated," Joseph said Sunday.
"Now healing can begin
-- for Indian people and the police.
"I do feel for the police
force because they are under public scrutiny and I think we need
to look at programs so individual officers can get the help they
need personally because they have issues too.
"They need to know the
Indian people of Saskatchewan don't hate them and are not going
to disrespect them because they wear that uniform."
Not everyone is so optimistic.
"People are still going
to be leery of them (police).
"These guys got caught,
that's all," said a woman at the Barry Hotel in Riversdale,
a neighbourhood with a high aboriginal population.
"I'm hearing that there
is still a lot of pain in the community and I don't know that
most people are generally hopeful," said Helen Smith-McIntyre,
chair of the community-based Advisory Committee on Diversity.
"There has to be a lot
of healing, a lot of listening and a lot of building bridges."
The committee offers three-day
workshops for officers in which sensitivity issues are discussed
as well as present policies and procedurees on the force.
"We work at building understanding
and building empathy," said Smith-McIntyre, noting the next
session begins today at Wanuskewin, the 6,000 year-old aboriginal
heritage site north of the city.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
