Beside the Badge
                             

05/06/02   Pay Issue

Your reasoning for the 17% increase certainly made sense from the onset of the pay raise issue, and I'll admit I was ready to go out and pin the $100 bill on my lapel.  Through my chamber and service club contacts, I began waving the flag for the cause. The message was getting across and support was building. 

It was easy to see through the rhetoric of the opposition (although I still respect Laura and remember her specifically telling the DPD and DFD people of her 5% 3 year plan during the mayoral campaign). The arguments, facts and figures and statements were accurate, albeit slanted and well worded to get their point across.  Good sales job, if I say so myself.  

Still I was unfettered and encouraged all of my friends and business associates to go for the whole enchilada. Then in the last two weeks, it happened. The sarcasm, the threats of doom and gloom, the name-calling, the negativism and poor union type scare tactics . . .brought what was up to that point a respectable and reasonable request . . .  to a screeching halt.

I have been a card carrying AFL/CIO affiliate member for over 40 years, and it has always fascinated me how poor union leadership can shoot themselves in the foot. You can blame the defeat of the proposition on the fine work of the opposition forces if you want, but my theory of the unexpected lopsidedness zeros in on my personal reaction and subsequent change of heart. I wasn't willing to place an immediate giant band-aid to cover up cancerous "Behind the Badge" type of thinking. 

As someone said recently,  "Threats don't set well with me."  I'll guarantee you, the people I've been in contact with feel the same way. It seems to me that we do indeed have a problem recruiting and retaining good people.  Hopefully there are still such dedicated servants that will bite the bullet and stick with us while the problem is being addressed and solved. I certainly understand the disappointment among the ranks, but hope the really good people realize that this surgical procedure is in its early first stages, and that  the compromise on the table will help rid those with the bad manners and poor tastes as exemplified by Association leadership to which we have been subjected during the latter part of the campaign. 

Give a huge raise to the Chief?  Not an issue!  Top administrators?  Ho-hum!  How about a big raise to the incompetent who are stuck in the department because they can't qualify for jobs in the suburbs?  And keep 'em belly aching?  Whoa!  . . . And what about the recruits?  Some administrative responsibility involving an equal degree of intelligence makes more sense than throwing a bunch of money out there.  Hopefully, the plan on the table will eventually provide both.

Sharon, with your subtle silence during the last 2 weeks of this issue, I was starting to think you were beginning to see the light. Hopefully, I wasn't blind sided myself.  I tend to think Laura has done her homework (she has a great record of doing this), and there is more to the solving of this complicated mess than meets the eye.  Victory, Bachman, Trinity,  Palladium, Voting Ethics, City Hall etc, etc . . . . all are pieces of the puzzle, and they're beginning to fit together. 

It's a shame the police and fire pay got caught up in it, but in the long run, I believe it will play a key part in the whole picture. I just hope and pray that the really good people in the police and fire departments stay with us. There are many of those, and they are the ones who should be in on the excitement and ultimate rewards during the next 3 years.

   . . .  And you'd better keep up the good work of helping us think for ourselves!  Stick with it lady, and good luck!

-Steve Bayless