New York City’s emergency dispatchers stated an informational protest near their Brooklyn comm center on Monday, raising issues of nearly continuous, mandatory overtime and on-going problems with the city’s new computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. The public protest follows a stand-off last week between a police captain and several dispatchers he had just ordered to remain on-duty for overtime. The staffing issues have been routine for the they city, and are mirrored at most large-city public safety comm centers in the United States. During yesterday’s protest, about 70 dispatchers held up signs to motorists and pedestrians saying, “9-1-1 Needs Help.” The dispatchers said the new CAD software installed May 29th suffers from glitches and outages, putting citizens, police officers and firefighters at risk. The group also said they are frequently required to work an extra eight hours of overtime past their regular shift. In fact, police confirm that an investigation is underway about an incident last month during which 20 dispatchers were ordered to stay beyond their regular shift. The dispatchers reportedly left their consoles and refused to stay. The captain in charge gave them five seconds to return, or face loss of three vacation days. The dispatchers did go back to their consoles, but later filed a complaint, noting that some of the group had already worked five consecutive 16-hour days.
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