# Question about seniority



## Bakerbingo (Apr 26, 2015)

I haven't been able to get an answer after looking through our contract and MGL C 31 regarding civil service law, so I'm curious to see if anyone can provide an answer or a resource here. I was hired in 2011 by a non civil service agency and transferred to a civil service department in 2013. I was one of three officers hired in 2013, two of us had the academy certification and one was sent to the academy. I had the second highest civil service score of those three and was ranked second as far as departmental seniority. There were two people who were in the academy when we were appointed and both were ranked higher on the seniority list. My previous agency had specific language in our contract that outlined the position of "student officer" which stated that anyone with the full time certification appointed while a student officer was in the academy would be senior to student officers. My current agency's contract has no language concerning seniority and the MGL was pretty vague. The two of us who transferred at the same time asked a union rep about this and we were told that its specified in the contract how seniority is determined but I can't find anything remotely close. Does anyone know the answer to this? If it goes by date of hire I'm out of luck but if its by date of appointment I feel like it's in my favor. You can't be appointed to the position of police officer without the state certification. Thanks for your help.


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## Edmizer1 (Aug 27, 2006)

This is what I have been told by reliable sources: Civil Service Seniority and Department Seniority are two unconnected things. Civil Service Seniority is purely by order of CS appointment and only applies to certain Civil Service situations such as layoffs and rehire. It is entirely possible to have CS Seniority over several officers but they could have department seniority over you. The department seniority, such as for shift bidding, vacations, will be determined by department contract.

I have a former co-worker who got laid-off several years ago by a CS department and he was one of the last lay-offs in a group of almost 100 officers. He got on a Non-CS department that was stable right after the lay-off. He got called back soon after the lay-off but his former city was still in financial trouble and he was told that he may get laid-off again soon after the re-hire. He decided to wait it out for a few of years until things stabilized because CS has to offer all lay-offs the job each time they re-hire for 10 years. He went back three years after the lay-off and was almost the last one re-hired from that group. He was told by CS that he would have all of his old seniority back. When he got back, the PD put him almost at the bottom of the department seniority list, after guys he used to have years of service over. He tried to fight it but was told he had CS seniority but not department seniority over the layoff group that came back earlier.


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## Bloodhound (May 20, 2010)

Edmizer1 said:


> Civil Service Seniority and Department Seniority are two unconnected things. Civil Service Seniority is purely by order of CS appointment and only applies to certain Civil Service situations such as layoffs and rehire. It is entirely possible to have CS Seniority over several officers but they could have department seniority over you. The department seniority, such as for shift bidding, vacations, will be determined by department contract.


This ^. For department seniority it is based on contract language, or past practice.


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## kdk240 (Nov 7, 2002)

We just had a case that was headed to consiliation, past practice prevailed prior to getting to that point at settlement agreement.


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## Bakerbingo (Apr 26, 2015)

I appreciate the responses, thank you guys


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