Deployment for Compressed LAPD Schedule Only Remaining Issue

Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Page No.: 8

Deployment for Compressed LAPD Schedule Only Remaining Issue—Union

By KIMBERLY EDDS, Staff Writer

A standoff between Los Angeles Police Department and police union officials over the actual deployment schedule when the LAPD implements a compressed work schedule in less than two weeks is the only thing keeping the process from moving forward, a union official told a City Council committee yesterday.

Bob Baker, Vice President of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told the Public Safety Committee that no definitive schedule has yet been provided in contract negotiations between the union and the city.

“We’re at a stalemate,” Baker said. “It’s pretty hard to agree to a document if you don’t have something that tells you what you are agreeing to.”

The Police Commission approved a compressed work schedule for the LAPD three weeks ago. The department is planning to begin using it in two divisions, Central and Hollywood, on Nov. 18.

The plan, designed by consultant Police Management Advisors, assigns patrol officers to 10- and 12-hour shifts, while eliminating 8-hour shifts completely.

Implementing a flexible work schedule for the city’s police officers was a promise Mayor James Hahn made to the LAPPL during his recent mayoral campaign.

The union and the city were negotiating issues involving the compressed work schedule yesterday afternoon in the latest in a series of confidential “meet and confer” sessions.

Officers who will switch to the compressed work schedule need to know exactly what the new schedule is going to look like before it is put in place, Cmdr. Dan Koenig said.

“People need to understand the ramifications of this to make intelligent decisions about what they would like,” Koenig said. “We need to be able to educate the officers.”

Koenig said he expected the commanding officers in Central and Hollywood would need to know the details of the new schedule by this afternoon to have enough time to explain the schedule to their officers.

The department wants to have the compressed schedule in all 18 divisions by May 5, before the start of the busy summer season but the new schedule will not be put in place in any new divisions during December because of the holidays, Koenig said.

A division from South Bureau and one from Valley Bureau will make the switch in January so that a division in each of the department’s four bureaus will have the compressed schedule.

The department will then start rolling the schedule out in the rest of the divisions.

The City Council must still approve the schedule before it is implemented.