Opinion ID: 1902272
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Desk assistants

Text: The duties of station desk assistants included distributing hand-held, two-way radios to officers going on patrol, acting as building security, sending duty notes to the dispatcher through the police computer, and writing incident reports when citizens come to the station to complain about such matters as domestic violence, stolen cars, and assaults. In the summer of 1992, a civilian clerk began working next to the police officer serving as a desk assistant in the Jersey City-West District police station. The task of taking and writing incident reports fell to the civilian clerk; the police clerk took reports only when the civilian clerk was busy. In one station, a civilian clerk was hired to take the place of one of three police clerks. In July 1994, one of the four police clerks in the South District retired and was immediately rehired as a civilian clerk. His duties as a civilian were the same as those he performed as a police officer. Because the Jersey City police have historically shared certain clerical duties with civilians, a historical waiver existed and the City had no obligation to negotiate the transfer of clerical duties to civilian desk assistants.