STEWARD TRAINING

Stewa 2022 rd Trainin

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A L L O W I N G I N F O R M AT I O N T O B E S H A R E D A M O N G D I F F E R E N T C H A P T E R S

Every year, the Metropolitan Alliance of Police hosts a Steward Training Seminar to ready chapter representatives, new and old, for upcoming changes and union negotiations. With new laws looming in the near future, MAP made it a priority to explain how they will affect their members with comprehensive preparation. “The Steward Seminar is for training current stewards and board members as well as new stewards to give them a taste of what kind of things they’ll be discussing in bargaining, arbitration as far as grievances and working with their contracts,” says Brian Barkalow, Vice President of the law enforcement bureau for MAP Chapter 126. This year, training included a few new challenges and, alternatively, benefits for MAP members. “I thought the training this year was very good; it did go over quite a few things we’ve gone over the last several years since I have been there, but there were a couple of new things,” says Barkalow. “The new things they talked about were the new offerings from the Midwest Coalition of Labor that MAP brought on board in this past year. They went over some of those things to let union stewards know about those changes and the additional benefits that MAP was able to bring through the Midwest Coalition of Labor.” MAP Executive Board member Derek Hawkins notes the upcoming SAFE-T Act and how it might affect members’ everyday work experience. “The SAFE-T Act is just a huge concern for current law enforcement because there is a lot of new language in the SAFE-T Act that isn’t clearly defined in courts,” says Hawkins. “There are certain words they choose to use, and we have to interpret what they mean and how are they defined. It opens us up to a lot of pitfalls and we’re really concerned with it. We’ve asked for clarification on some of the SAFE-T Act language and even the experts in the field and the people who wrote it cannot give us clear definitions of this language. It’s very problematic for how we carry out our everyday operations on the street as police officers.” Critical Incidents and bargaining were also main talking points and are two highly important topics brought up annually. “They do a great job of going over bargaining; bargaining of our contract, what we should be looking for and what the current conditions of bargaining and things we should make sure are in our contracts,” says Barkalow. “The last thing they really go over and is super important for everyone is critical incidents like officer involved shootings. They talk about what MAP is going to do, what officers should do, what we should be telling our members if they are involved in a situation like that or if we are involved in a situation like that. When that high stress incident happens, we’ll know what we should be doing or saying; it’s super important for the members to know that stuff and know that MAP is going to be behind them, so it’s always a critical part of the training.” Ultimately, the Steward Seminar creates a baseline for members to find fundamental career support. “We are the head organization, and it just sets the proper tone,” says Hawkins. “It shows we take a vested interest in the development and training of our chapters and it’s a chance for us to sit down and talk from person to person, see what questions they have or what issues are going on. It’s dual purpose and we provide a lot of training, but it also gives us a chance to meet with our members.”