Applebaum claims threats from police union
Police Brotherhood head says it was ‘negotiations’
Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum called a press conference Friday morning to say he was being personally threatened by the head of Montreal’s police union because the city has refused to allow officers to work a three-day week.
Police Brotherhood president Yves Francoeur promptly responded with a news conference of his own a few hours later, accusing Applebaum of spreading falsehoods through the media to fight a long-running battle between police and the city over the first change to their working hours since 1978.
Applebaum produced an email sent from Yves Francoeur’s head of communications Thursday to his press aide stating: “Let the mayor know it’s not the civil servants who will have the trouble of having us on their back, it’s the mayor.”
Allow the 13-month pilot project that allowed a threeday work week to continue for another year and Francoeur will thank the mayor publicly and “the episode will be closed” the email states.
Applebaum said he spoke to Francoeur Friday morning and the head of the police brotherhood told him he had until 6 p.m. to change course on the program or he would face a pressure campaign that would target him. He did not specify what form those attacks would take.
“This morning he gave me an ultimatum of 6 p.m. and said if I did not respond favourably I would be attacked, not the city officials looking into the file. … If the police want to dispute the issue, they have the right,” Applebaum said, saying he understood they have families and difficult jobs.
But it has to be done through proper channels and not by threatening the mayor of a metropolis.
“I remain convinced Montreal taxpayers, most of whom work five-day weeks, will back me on this,” he said.
Applebaum said that, in his 18 years in politics, he had never given in to threats and would not now.
Francoeur said in his eight years as head of the union he had never had a politician call a press conference to dis- cuss private negotiation conversations. He did not make any threats, he said, just applied pressure common during union negotiations, and is looking into having a lawyer demand Applebaum retract his allegations.
Francoeur said he requested a response by 6 p.m. because if “you’ve ever dealt with the city, you know that if you don’t give city officials a deadline you risk waiting months for a response.”
“There was no threat. If, when you are in negotiations and you say between you and management if you can’t find a solution, the shit’s going to fly, if people think those are threats, those are people with thin skin.”
At issue was a pilot project that ran for 13 months during which 2,400 of the force’s 4,750 officers working in neighbourhood departments saw their shifts increase from 8.75 hours a day to 9.75, allowing some to work a threeday week one week followed by a four-day week the next. The union said it permitted officers, 1,400 of whom are women, more family time and eradicated the unhealthy need to switch from day shifts to night shifts. It also put more police on duty in the evenings when they were most needed by citizens.
Management, however, said the shift change was more expensive and taking manpower away from crucial daytime duties.
Applebaum said 30 out of 33 police commanders said the shift change wasn’t working and police chief Marc Parent and the city’s head of human resources agreed the program had to be scrapped. It’s the city’s civil servants who study these issues and make the decision, and the union has to negotiate with them, Applebaum said.
Francoeur sees it differently.
“What we would like is a mayor who makes a decision instead of pushing it off to bureaucrats,” he said. “He has to stand up because this is a political decision … For sure if we have something to do, it will be against the may- or and the elected officials. They are the ones in a normal city who have to make the important decisions.”
Pressure tactics would likely start next week, Francoeur said, without elaborating. And the police brotherhood will not be endorsing Applebaum for mayor if he chooses to run next November. Applebaum has said he would not be running.