Mediator to Rule
Det. Investigators Waiting on Pact

By REUVEN BLAU

After more than four years of failed negotiations, members of the Detective Investigators' Association have now waited 10 months and counting for a mediator to issue a binding award.

JOHN M. FLEMING: 'Everything riding on pact.'

Office of Collective Bargaining mediator Gayle Gavin oversaw the evidentiary hearing held last April, but has yet to release her recommendation, which will be used as the contract barring an appeal from either the city or union arguing that the decision is arbitrary and capricious.

Briefs a Factor?

"We are waiting for her," said DIA President John M. Fleming during a Jan. 15 phone interview.

Ms. Gavin declined to comment, noting that the case was ongoing. But a source indicated that the parties have been busy submitting briefs since the hearings ended, which has likely delayed her ruling.

"The post-hearing briefs were filed on Sept. 7," Mr. Fleming maintained.

A source last week indicated that the last brief in the case was actually submitted in December.

The DIA represents 300 Investigators who are still considered Police Officers who work for the five District Attorneys' Offices and the Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office. The union contends that the city Office of Labor Relations is failing to comply with a new law classifying its members as uniformed workers.

Union 'Bankrupt'

The drawn-out contract dispute with city negotiators has left the DIA "bankrupt," Mr. Fleming said.

In order to pay labor attorneys and expert witnesses, the DIA has dissolved its scholarship program and a fund for members injured on the job. "We had to scale down our holiday party," he added. "We gave up everything for this fight."

The DIA contract expired April 13, 2003. The union filed a lawsuit in May 2005 charging that OLR officials were ignoring the 1989 state legislation granting its members uniformed status. Two months later, the city settled the litigation after agreeing to stipulate that it would adhere to the classification.

But Mr. Fleming, who was recently re-elected without opposition, contended that the Bloomberg administration has failed to recognize that agreement.

The union president reiterated last week that the DIA has offered to have members work an additional half-hour each day in order to finance the 4.24 percent in savings that was generated by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration award in June 2005 in return for two 5-percent raises for incumbent Police Officers.

"I'm not asking for more than the Police Department," he said. "We are asking for the exact same thing. We are willing to pay for it, the same way the police did."

Want Uniform Deal

Mr. Fleming said that during the arbitration hearing in April it was revealed that the city had never conducted a job audit of the Detective Investigator title. "So they have no idea what we do," he asserted.

His members, he added, are involved in sophisticated long-term investigations that last year led to the seizure of 1,071 kilos of cocaine, 21 kilos of heroin, 12 firearms. They helped win 76 A1 felony convictions in the narcotics division alone.

"It's a joke that these people are not recognized at the bargaining table for what they are," Mr. Fleming asserted.

At the hearing, the DIA argued that its member have assumed much of the work that was formerly done by NYPD Detectives. In 1986, the DIA had 146 members and there was none assigned to Staten Island or a Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office, Mr. Fleming said.

There has been a voluminous amount of evidence filed in the proceeding. "It's an extraordinarily complicated case," an insider said.

Last summer, Governor Spitzer signed into law a bill granting the DIA the ability to seek binding arbitration to resolve contract disputes.