IN AN act of open defiance toward their boss, the Chief of Police, the Cyprus Police Association (SAK) yesterday took its first step to becoming a fully-fledged trade union.
The association will hold a vote in early December to approve proposed changes to SAK’s articles of association enabling it to join PASYDY, the civil servants’ blanket union.
“Today, the green light was given for SAK’s integration into PASYDY,” association spokesman Andreas Symeou told newsmen.
SAK’s spiralling row with the Police Chief Michalis Papageorgiou was triggered by a disagreement over the work timetable. The Chief has ordered that from now on all police officers, no matter where they are stationed, must work eight-hour shifts, back to back.
The association says traffic police prefer to work 12-hour shifts every other day because many of them live far from their workplace and waste a great deal of time – and gasoline – commuting.
With neither side willing to budge, the dispute has escalated in SAK’s bid for greater autonomy from the chain of command.
The association’s general assembly will convene on 5 December to put to the vote the motion to join PASYDY.
Symeou yesterday accused the Police Chief of seeking to sabotage the association’s efforts, for example by omitting to publish, in his weekly memo, a draft of the proposed amendments to SAK’s articles of association.
This was nevertheless inconsequential, Symeou claimed, as the association only needs to publish the amendments in two high-circulation newspapers to serve notice.
On 10 September the association’s plenum is staging a demo outside police HQ in Nicosia to protest the Chief’s action.
Symeou said the Chief was shunning the association by refusing to talk with them despite repeated calls for dialogue.
Another grievance concerns back pay for overtime for policing football matches. SAK announced it has agreed to a compromise formula, whereby police officers would receive just 50 per cent of overtime pay owed, and to be compensated with time off for the remaining half.
On the mandatory eight-hour shift, Symeou said it caused family problems for many policemen “whose wives and children do not get to see them sometimes for 20 days a month.”
Back in July, some 500 off-duty officers demonstrated at the Presidential Palace against the decision enforcing the eight-hour day.
Symeou said the association is planning to go ahead with a demonstration outside the House of Representatives in October, on the first session of parliament after the summer recess.
By law, members of the police force are not entitled to strike, though SAK is considering a legal opinion by the former Attorney-General Kritonas Tornaritis, which restricts right to strike but does not prohibit it completely.
Responding to SAK’s announcements, police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said yesterday that while the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus both safeguard workers’ right to organise, in both cases there are restrictions.
He said a committee of experts, appointed by the Police Chief, has already concluded that SAK is not entitled to join PASYDY.
“However, if the state allows this, its decision will be respected,” he added.
“No one is above the Law,” said Katsounotos, “be it the Chief of Police or the Cyprus Police Association, and everyone must operate within the bounds set by the Constitution, the laws and regulations.”
