The union representing NYPD sergeants is demanding Mayor Adams intervene in its contract negotiations with the city and kill a potentially dangerous 12-hour tour requirement that’s brought the bargaining process to a complete standstill, the Daily News has learned.
On Friday, a member of the Sergeants Benevolent Association hand-delivered the union’s request to the Mayor’s Office, noting a city Department of Investigation report claims cops working 12-hour tours were found to have an increased amount of workplace injuries, vehicle collisions, risk of lawsuits and substantiated Civilian Complaint Review Board complaints.
“It’s time for him to pull ahead of these wannabe mayors and lead by example,” SBA President Vinny Vallelong said, noting Mayor Adams’ reelection bid, which kicked into full gear this week after federal public corruption charges against him were dismissed with prejudice. “He’s the only one in the crowd with past police experience.”
Adams has credited his administration with successfully negotiating contracts with unions representing nearly 97% of the city’s workforce. On Thursday, during a press conference touting massive crime reductions in the first quarter of the year, he said that the NYPD is “not going to cut pennies to save lives.”
“Whatever we need to spend to save the lives of New Yorkers and to keep the city safe, we’re going to spend it,” Adams said.
“I would have hoped he would be screaming and yelling about this already,” Vallelong said of Adams, who vowed during his State of the City address in January to “settle a contract” with the SBA. “There’s no burden for him to start making decisions that would be good for the city and its workers,” the union chief said.
After nearly two years, the SBA and city had hammered out a memorandum of agreement for a new contract in late March. But the process grinded to a halt when it was learned the new contract couldn’t go forward unless NYPD sergeants agreed to work 12-hour tours as part of a city pilot program.
SBA union delegates have since voted twice on the issue and overwhelmingly weighed in against 12-hour tours, Vallelong said.
“The SBA has NEVER given the city any indication that we would agree to these tours and will not waiver on this point,” Vallelong said in a letter to his members Friday. “In fact, there are numerous studies that prove they are detrimental to your physical and mental health, family life and decision making.”
In his letter, Vallelong cited the DOI report, although city officials have said that the study evaluated 12-hour tours involving overtime hours, not 40-hour workweeks broken into 12-hour shifts.
The study does state that long shifts “contribute to an increase in negative policing outcomes,” indicated Vallelong, who added that 12-hour shifts could be “physically and mentally taxing” and “lead to officer fatigue-related incidents.”
The toll on officers would only be further compounded if they have to do overtime on top of their 12-hour shifts, which sergeants would most likely have to do since there are so few of them, Vallelong said.
There are currently 4,300 sergeants in the NYPD, which has about 36,000 members. By July, 1,100 sergeants will have vested their pensions and would be free to retire, said Vallelong, adding that the NYPD hasn’t promoted anyone to sergeant since January.
Since January, 150 sergeants have retired, union officials said.
“The city isn’t realizing that 12 hours is really 16 hours with overtime, and then my members have to drive up to two hours to get home,” he said. “They’re not putting in the human factor. If we approve this contract and one of my guys falls asleep behind the wheel on his way home, goes off the road, crashes and dies, I’d never forgive myself.”
Vallelong asked the city to attend the delegates’ meeting and discuss their 12-hour tour request, but so far they’ve declined.
A similar push to move officers in the city Department of Correction to 12-hour tours was pulled back in March after the plan sparked anger among rank-and-file members.
In 2023, the Police Benevolent Association, which represents NYPD police officers, agreed to 10- and 12-hour tours in their contract. About 3,000 rank-and-file cops in 12 police precincts and 12 transit districts are currently working longer tours, city officials said.
PBA President Patrick Hendry said the extended tours, known as a “modern duty chart” are “the gold standard in law enforcement agencies around the country because they give police officers more regularly scheduled days off to decompress and spend time with their families, as well as lower commuting and child care expenses.”
Vallelong and his delegates disagree, claiming 12-hour tours are unsafe for their members and the public at large.
“After the first few weeks [doing the 12-hour tours], you’re walking around like a zombie,” he said. “When I first became a sergeant I worked the midnight shift for years. Everyone knows that by 4 a.m., you’re already nodding off at your desk.”
Vallelong said there was “no monetary value” in 12-hour tours for the city or his members, so the requirement didn’t need to be baked into the contract. If the city agreed to discuss volunteers for the pilot program after the contract was ratified, though, his members would be open to that proposal, he said.
“I try to do things behind closed doors,” he said, noting he was unaccustomed to these public pleas for intervention. “But in this case no one is answering the door. You just hear some scuffling behind it.”
A city spokeswoman said the 12-hour shift proposal at the heart of the issue is a “small-scale, one-year pilot program that would affect approximately 50 sergeants.”
“It is unfortunate,” the spokesperson said, “that the Sergeants Benevolent Association continues to hold up raises for 5,000 sergeants — and is trying to negotiate in the press rather than coming to the table to reach an agreement — for a good contract that includes a limited pilot program consistent with tours that many police officers are already working as part of a pilot program negotiated with the Police Benevolent Association.”
