Here is what it's going to take...........

The Chief is doing a good job support him as he does you. Smile be happy you have a job.

At one time, I would have agreed with you about Chief doing a good job and supporting the officers. It lasted about 2-3 years into his administration. After that, it became politics as usual. If he likes you, you move up. If he doesn't, it's a matter of time before he can find a reason to terminate you or you discover the only way you will move up is to find another department. The city has expanded and the number of citizens has increased. The number of officers has not. The cost of housing, insurance, etc has increased. The pay has not kept pace. Officers come and more frequently, go.

The main incentive offered by the city and chief can be summed up in this:

Smile be happy you have a job

Bring on the union. I'll sign the card today

We all see things different. Unions are good in big corporations and things get messy. The ones that suffer are the employees. The supervision should be a voice for the officers and get with the Chief and lay out a plan and follow up with the officers. It's important to keep the officers informed. Be safe.

We all see things different. Unions are good in big corporations and things get messy. The ones that suffer are the employees. The supervision should be a voice for the officers and get with the Chief and lay out a plan and follow up with the officers. It's important to keep the officers informed. Be safe.

I try not to be overly critical of the spelling or grammer used by posters on this forum. In this case, I will make an exception.
Your post makes no sense whatsoever and appears to have been wrote by someone with a diminished capacity.

We do not need a union. We do not need a union. If we had one it would be worse. We knew what the pay was when we got hired. Most of us have our applications in all over the state and can't get hired. Some old timers can't even get promoted and it's not because of grammer. No union get over it. Stop using this site for crying. ops:

We do not need a union. We do not need a union. If we had one it would be worse. We knew what the pay was when we got hired. Most of us have our applications in all over the state and can't get hired. Some old timers can't even get promoted and it's not because of grammer. No union get over it. Stop using this site for crying. ops:

Finally, you make sense. I guess you're sober now. First, we do need a union (it doesn't help to write the same sentence twice, it doesn't make your point any stronger).
Second. Worse than what? A union at least gives you some input into your pay and benefit package instead of hoping each year the chief will try to get a decent pay and benefit package past a city manager who is trying to put together a budget to get past a commission who is concerned their neighbors and buddies will be upset if the budget raises taxes. Will it be difficult initially if we have a union, yes. Our pay will not go down, but we will have to bargain for certain items which may include things like take home cars. In the end, we will benefit from this.
Third. It is being proved every month our officers ARE being hired by other departments. Usually at a higher salary and better benefits. Are you a PCPD officer or are you oblivious to this?
Fourth. It doesn't matter how long you have been here. If you know the laws, SOP, etc, display characteristics considered favorable in a supervisor such as good judgment, team player, can pass a fair and impartial test, you should be promoted. If you are passed over for a less qualified individual, lay the blame at Chief's door. It wouldn't be the first time he has done it.
Fifth. When you are hired, you are told your pay will be X amount (say $34,000 a year). Out of your first paycheck and every one after this comes the following: 13.75 % for retirement, depending on your family situation-you could pay another 10-15 % or so for medical, income tax, social security, and medicare. In the end, your paycheck doesn't look anything like what you were told. You end up struggling to make ends meet and have to work all the extra duty you can manage to support your family.
Sixth. If you are going to use terms designed to elicit a certain response such as "stop using this site for crying", grow up. This is a message board and is designed for the exchange of ideas.

If you are part of the administration or someone attempting to curry favor with the Chief by squashing talk of a Union, actions would go a lot further than words. The administration needs to do something to help the officers.
This means more pay, better benefits, better working conditions.
You need to get more in touch with the officers who work for you. Chief, don't rely solely on your contact with the advisory board to let you know about issues. Some representatives don't tell you everything for fear of it appearing trivial or pissing you off.
Start coming to roll calls on a more regular basis and find out what the issues are and actually try to fix them. Don't wait a few months to see if it will pass over. This has been an issue for many years. Some issues are small and may not seem much to you, but it means something to us (one example is wearing ball caps on a regular basis and carrying AR15s).
Get out on the street and see the officers in action, not just when there is a murder or robbery or to see what you can catch them doing, but to recommend them for awards where appropriate.
Ensure the supervisors are taking care of the officers. An abusive supervisor or one who doesn't take care of the officers can cause you more problems than low pay and benefits.
If you hear an officer wants to go to another department, find out why. There may be a reason which can be fixed (abusive supervisor, can't work night shift due to family situation, etc). The attitude of "if they want to go, let them go" doesn't help. It has caused us to lose a number of good officers. If the officer still wants to leave, don't retaliate. If they occupy a certain position in the department, leave them alone. After they leave, it is still remembered by everyone whether they liked the person or not.

Here is something else to throw out. While there is consideration to cut the contribution for retirement back to 10%, we should seek means to have a larger impact on our life. 3.75% in most cases is less than $40.00 a week before taxes.

Some examples are this: cut the retirement contribution to half or more-other agencies such as Tampa offer comparable retirements with contributions as low as 3%.
Keep the same contributions and raise benefits-include quality medical benefits, cost of living etc.
Change the formula for calculating pensions-best 3 years out of the last 5 and yearly pay should not be calculated using a Jan 1-Dec 31 method. It should be from the date of retirement counting backwards. This will generally give you a higher retirement.

Our pension fund is doing very well. We are not taking a loss and are in no danger of taking one. After over 5 years at the same rate with the same benefits, it is time to reassess and either provide better benefits or drastically cut the contribution rate.

Remember, the retirement fund is there to benefit us.

Thanks for your input. I have had bad experiences with unions. If a review board was put in place and everyone could sit down and come up with some solutions and not worry about retaliations it would be great. PCPD is a good dept. and it's hard to understand why they can't communicate about these issues. I wish you the best.

if you are going to be critical of another's "spelling and grammer" then maybe you should spell check your own post first. "grammer" is spelled grammar.

if you are going to be critical of another's "spelling and grammer" then maybe you should spell check your own post first. "grammer" is spelled grammar.

While you are correct about the spelling error, I have to ask..is that all you have to offer? One misspelled word out of several posts containing several hundred words offering an exchange of ideas. I have noticed you haven't mentioned the sentence structure of any particular post. Perhaps you forgot about capitalizations at the beginning of a sentence or beginning a sentence with quote marks. If you forget about those, you should look at the proper application of a comma separating two elements of a sentence.
It appears your intention is to take pot shots. If you have anything of value to add regarding the ongoing dialogue of this post, please post it. If not, it's past your bedtime and you need to be in school by 8:00 am.

I agree with you senior leo, the administration needs to listen to the officers about better pay and benefits. Do we really want a union? I know we don't need one. Just the thought of a union causes frustration. We need more open communication. We need to establish good leadership based on trust and respect. The leaders become the facilitators. I feel we can become our own union. What more can a union do? make threats? strike? etc.... Thats not what were about, we are above that. Really, think about it. We need to get with the administration or supervisors and lay out some issues, just like a union would do, only better, because it would come from us. Be positive it will work out. Take care