Cop sues city, seeks overtime for BlackBerry use

From the Chicago Sun-Times courtesy of the Huffington Post news wire:

The city has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.

Allen was issued a BlackBerry while he was in the gang-investigations unit. "These guys, regardless of rank, are spending in some cases hours on the phone dealing with search-warrant issues and calls from supervisors about cases -- and they're working when it's not their tour of duty," Geiger said.

"We believe we can prove it's a requirement for people who want to work in the gang-investigation unit," he said. "If you tell them you're not going to work outside your work hours and don't want a BlackBerry, you're not going to work in the unit."

More here.

In the thirty years since the beginning of the Reagan era, we've witnessed a steady decline in worker rights coinciding with a steady increase in worker responsibilities--over the same period, wages have generally stagnated, and in some cases even decreased. The reason for all this, of course, is that the Washington consensus, dominated as it is these days by pop neoliberal economic theory, no longer gives a shit about workers. Management, in both public and private sectors, have taken full advantage of this, squeezing their workers as much as they dare, with the comforting knowledge that the federal government will, in all probability, do absolutely nothing to stop them.

So you hear all these flimsy justifications coming down from management. "Well, it's not really work, you know, it's just answering the phone, checking a few emails." Except, of course, it is work. You sure as hell wouldn't be doing it unless keeping your job depended on it. And work, especially hourly work, must receive payment. The English language has a word that well describes unpaid work: slavery. I know, I know, we're all supposed to be team players. We're all supposed to be dedicated to our careers and all that. And employers are so smooth with the Orwellian euphemisms they use to describe off-the-clock work. But fuck that shit. Call it what you want, but working for free makes me your bitch. You get all the benefit and I get nothing.

I really hope this lawsuit succeeds.

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