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October 17, 2008

Peabody police could be first in state to get 9/11 holiday pay

Stacie N. Galang

Click here to see a PDF of the police union's agreement with the city.



PEABODY — New York City’s 24,000 police officers don’t get Sept. 11 as a paid holiday, but the Peabody police do.

“We don’t do it, and I’ve never heard of it,” said Joseph Mancini, a spokesman for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of New York City.

The four-year Peabody police contract, which the city released Thursday, gives time-and-a-quarter pay to any officer who works on Sept. 11. The day of the terrorist attacks has yet to be recognized as a holiday nationally or statewide.

The contract clause is a first for Peabody, and from all indications, the Police Department is the first in the state, if not the nation, to get Sept. 11 as a paid holiday.

Representatives of other police unions and public safety agencies — who oversee nearly 1,000 unions in all — couldn’t point to a single instance where it’s happened elsewhere.

“I’m not aware of any IBPO locals that have negotiated 9/11 as a paid holiday,” said Stephanie Zaiser, spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents 250 unions in the United States.

It was news to Rich Roberts of the International Union of Police Associations, which represents 500 unions in the United States and the Caribbean.

Events like Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor stay with you, Roberts said. He had no objection to police officers in Peabody getting Sept. 11 as a paid holiday.

“It’s the single greatest loss of law enforcement in history,” he said.

Craig Fischer, a spokesman for Police Executive Research Forum, said no one in his Washington, D.C.-based think tank has heard of such a thing.

“From my experience, I don’t know of any other contract that has this,” said attorney Ken Grace of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police.

The coalition, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, represents 154 unions across the state, according to its Web site.

Besides their Sept. 11 pay, Peabody officers will receive a 13 percent pay raise over four years, increased bonuses for longevity, and weapons training pay increases. The city also agreed to use uniformed police officers for detail duty.

In exchange, the police will pay a larger portion of their health care costs, more for doctor’s office and emergency room visits and more for their prescriptions. They also agreed to submit to random drug testing.

Assistant City Solicitor Daniel Cocuzzo, who negotiated on the city’s behalf, said previously that he was happy that officers were willing to step up to the plate and negotiate the testing.

Grace, who sat at the table with Peabody’s negotiations team, said the Sept. 11 paid holiday recognizes the sacrifice that public safety workers make in their profession.

Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor stand apart in national history, Grace said. He said the police officers’ holiday is a way of thinking about the people who lost their lives that day.

“They’re proud of the way those people acted in that profession, and they try to do the same kind of sacrifice in their daily job,” he said of Peabody officers.

The City Council still needs to vote to fund the new contract for this year.



Click here to see a PDF of the police union's agreement with the city.

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