Chicago firefighter-turned-alderman Nick Sposato (36th) and the union representing fire dispatchers maneuvered Monday to kill Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to reduce the ranks of police and fire dispatchers at the city’s 911 emergency center.
Fire and EMS dispatcher Jeff Johnson , union steward for IBEW Local 9, said the mayor’s plan to eliminate the jobs of 17 fire dispatchers, lay off nine others and shrink the supervisory ranks from 13 to 8 could send response times and employee burn-out rates through the roof.
The jobs of 45 police dispatchers would also be eliminated. So would four of 22 radio repair technicians at a time when radio and data frequencies need to be reprogrammed to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.
OEMC Cuts
Almost word for word from our comment section, so evidently, the IBEW is trolling here. The Sun Times also points out the rather large amount of overtime generated by current shortages, so wouldn't it follow that making the dispatch center more shorthanded would only increase overtime? It might be cheaper than actually hiring dispatchers, but then the Sun Times really ought to stop ripping the overtime costs when they're tacitly supporting Rahm's cuts - especially when overtime is MANDATORY for dispatchers.