CLEVELAND, Ohio – The union that represents officers who protect Cleveland’s utility plants is fighting the city’s attempt to prevent the workers from carrying weapons.
The Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association is taking the city to arbitration Tuesday to allow the employees to holster guns while working at the water treatment and electrical facilities, which serve 1.6 million people in Cuyahoga County. The union says it is too dangerous for the special police officers to work without weapons.
“There is a contractual right for those officers to carry a weapon,” said Danielle Chaffin, an attorney for the union. “It’s an essential part of their job duties, and, without a weapon, their job becomes incredibly unsafe.”
Chaffin said the officers have encountered people with guns and knives. They’ve taken reports of trespassing, breaking and entering and gunshots fired. There also have been assaults and thefts at the plants. Last year, a drive-by shooting took place outside of a water control facility. An employee’s car was struck by stray bullets, according to court records.
Cleveland officials, however, say the city’s charter does not give them the authority to issue special police commissions to the officers, according to court records. The city has 50 special officers, known as protective services officers, who receive training from the state police training academy. The city has had the protective services officers for more than 20 years.
In September, the city determined that it was no longer legal for the utility employees to act as special police officers, and they would have to give up their city-owned weapons. The city began to confiscate the weapons the same day, Chaffin said. Previous Cleveland mayors have renewed the commissions that allowed officers to carry weapons.
But Mayor Justin Bibb and Safety Director Karrie Howard took the stance that they did not have the authority to keep renewing the commissions, and the officers would have to forfeit their weapons.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to the Bibb administration for comment.
Last fall, the union filed for a temporary restraining order in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, where a stipulated agreement was reached that the officers would be returned their weapons, and the commissions would be temporarily reinstated.
Chaffin said the city is breaching several articles of its collective bargaining agreement with the union, along with its longstanding past practice by requiring officers to perform their job duties with no protection from potentially lethal encounters.
In court filings, the city said the union’s “grievance is futile,” as the collective bargaining agreement reserves the city’s right “to maintain and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of city operations (and) determine the overall methods, process means or personnel by which the city operations are to be conducted.”
Chaffin said the job is too dangerous. The city provides bulletproof vests, but it won’t give its employees weapons, she said.
“I think that the city of Cleveland is not only putting my employees’ lives on the line, but the lives of anyone who works in those plants is now on the line,” Chaffin said. “Basically, we’re making it easier for there to be a terrorist attack on our water because we don’t even have anyone with a weapon there to protect the facility.”
* Article from: cleveland.com