City police scrap $23,000 uniforms for dispatchers
A $23,000 project to outfit Ottawa police 911 dispatchers with uniforms has been scrapped just two months after it was launched.
The undoing? The dry cleaning bill.
What the service appears not to have factored in to costs to provide embroidered golf shirts and fleece vests to its dispatchers is the mandatory annual provision for dry cleaning costs for uniformed positions in the civilian collective agreement.
That would have taken its $23,000 expenditure and added more than $50,000 to it annually, or more than half a million dollars over 10 years.
A Nov. 9 email to all dispatchers from the inspector in charge of the communications branch spelled out the about face.
“As you know, starting in September 2020, Communications Centre members were provided with OPS-branded golf shirts and fleece vests that were required to be worn during your shifts,” he wrote.
“Given the dry cleaning allowance in the civilian personnel collective agreement and the current practice regarding the provision of this clothing, Communications Centre members who were issued OPS-branded clothing this year are eligible for the 2020 dry cleaning allowance, which is $350.00 per member.”
The email said that all employees would be getting that allowance in a December pay.
Non-uniform civilian positions do not get a dry cleaning allowance, but any civilian who is mandated to wear a uniform as part of their job is eligible for the allowance. That meant that the nearly 150 people in the communications centre would each qualify for an annual $350 dry-cleaning allowance for as long as the job required a uniform.
But then the email continued: “Please be advised that, effective immediately, as a result of the memorandum of settlement regarding the clothing, Communications Centre members are no longer required to wear the OPS-branded clothing while at work.”
The email also said that any employee who wants to wear the clothing is welcome to do so but that no future dry-cleaning payments would be made.
Management “retains the discretion to provide OPS-branded golf-shirts and fleece vests to new Communications Centre members when they are hired with no expectation or requirement for them to wear them in the workplace and no dry cleaning allowance will be provided to these new members,” the email continued.
While some dispatchers said they wanted the uniforms, other OPS employees are wondering about a plan that wasn't implemented properly costing taxpayers money with nothing long term to show for it.
In a statement to this newspaper, the service said, “The uniforms were purchased in October to provide employees with easy to wash, professional-looking and standardized Ottawa Police
Service clothing. This was a member-driven initiative. At that time, a decision was made to make this clothing part of regular uniform for Communications Centre employees.”
The service said that “collective agreement and other issues have been raised” since the rollout. “While those issues are being fully explored and understood, a decision has been made to suspend the mandatory uniform requirement. Employees are still free to wear the clothing at work. This issue will continue to be discussed in further collective agreement discussions.”
Ottawa Police Association president Matt Skof said uniforms or a broader dress code had been contemplated for some time for the communications centre.
Employees themselves were surveyed by the service and the survey showed that employees agreed with it.
Once the uniforms were ordered to be worn, the association invoked a standing section of the collective agreement that provided that a civilian who is expected to wear a uniform is eligible for a dry cleaning allowance. The service had not, prior to that, planned to pay the allowance, Skof said. That part of the collective agreement applies to other sections of civilian employees with uniforms, too. The association filed a grievance to make sure that the employees were getting what their contract stipulated, Skof said.
The concept of uniform brings a concept of team which brings a concept of camaraderie and unity, Skof said.
“Where the frustration lies right now is the amount of work and effort that went into the planning of it,” Skof said. For the service to turn around and scrap the uniforms now is a blow to morale. “It was a lot of significant effort that seemed to be for naught.”
Skof said he believes the decision was financially based. The additional costs were not part of the budgeted costs for the communications centre, Skof said, which is already stretched because of short staffing.