Bound for MetroTech
Will Phase in 911 Unit Centralization

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Unions representing police, fire and emergency medical call-takers and dispatchers learned last week when their members would be moving to their new quarters, but got precious little information about their transformed job responsibilities under the Bloomberg administration's 911 system overhaul.

PATRICK J. BAHNKEN: Talk to us.

Details to Come

Police Technicians will move into the new call center on the third floor of 11 MetroTech in Brooklyn in March 2008. They will need training to operate the new computer-assisted phone system, which will allow more items to be viewed on the call screen than the current one. The fire dispatchers and emergency medical call-takers will be relocated alongside the Police Technicians by March 2009. Some of these workers are expected to move into a new call center in 2012, which is currently planned for The Bronx.

Union leaders said that City Hall was taking the security concerns they expressed very seriously, but if city officials have a plan for which agency will oversee the operation, what job responsibilities will be merged and how salaries will change, they are not yet sharing it.

"Our workers have been told by their supervisors that they're going to do the job of everybody else," said Eddie Gates, the first assistant director for the clerical division of District Council 37, which represents the Police Technicians, "but the city told us at the meeting that they have not come to a conclusion about this yet."

The three groups of workers currently have significantly different roles - the Fire Alarm Dispatchers are trained to collect and transmit fire information, the Police Technicians handle police emergencies, and EMS workers can be called upon to give life-saving advice over the phone while a caller waits for a Paramedic to arrive. Each group works in a different call center throughout the city.

Meant to Streamline

Mayor Bloomberg in early July announced a streamlined 911 system with the goal of decreasing response times and preventing callers from having to repeat themselves when they are transferred to different call-takers, depending upon their emergency. The unions are concerned about how the city will handle the questions of job responsibilities, salaries, benefits and hours across three sets of workers represented by unions with three different pay and pension scales.

Labor Relations Commissioner James F. Hanley said the meeting with the unions was productive. "We are working together to address any issues that may arise as the city prepares to implement unified call taking beginning in March 2009," he stated in an e-mail.

The union leaders said they had been promised a walk-through of the new facility equipped with the new technology before it opened.

"If they are coming to us and saying, 'This is the way it shall be,' it's only going to lead to confrontation," said DC 37 Local 2507 Uniformed Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics President Patrick Bahnken, who represents the medical emergency call-takers. "Whereas a little bit of time spent talking to us early might make them aware as they moved forward. We prefer not to be obstructionist, but it is something we are capable of."