CBP in the Local News

[chewy]

Let me understand, the woman was inadmissable, she assaulted two of your partners and you are upset she missed Christmas. That is a sad state of affairs.

As far as Buffalo goes, overtime is a condition of employment. It is never forced, all you have to say is I quit. There are contractual stipulations on back to back OT and number of hours worked and for the most part they are followed. Sometimes they are not, after 9/11 we worked 8 or 9 doubles in a row, we know why we did it. Furthermore, if an Officer doesn't have the guts to tell his Sup. that he is going to the bathroom or he is going to inhale a sandwhich, he damn sure isn't going to have the guts to arrest someone who is wanted. Any Sup. that forces those conditions or makes those types of statements is a union steward's dream come true. There are plenty of people leaving CBP to other agencies, most in search of a covered position while they are young enough. Damn few will tell you the state of affairs is any better in their new agency.

LT

While I do agree somewhat on the "just quit" option, it is a fact that we are made to work back to back 16's and there isn't anything we can do about it. The OT is, infact forced. I don't want to work it but they order me to so I have to. Granted it is a condition of employment but it is still forced. We complain to the union about a lot of things but anymore the union just doesn't have the ability it used to to change things. Things are bad and unfortunately they aren't getting any better but some of us don't have degrees and such which makes it almost impossible to get a lot of other jobs, especially federal. I'm miserable now but the money is good. I've been trying for about seven years to get to another agency with no luck so it's not aways that easy. We are frequently told to do things by management and you can't stand up and tell them NO or you will be written up or worse. Once you tick them off it just makes life worse. I've had that experience here and lost a supervisor and K-9 position because of it.

[TheIrish]

Thanks for clarifying that chewy, Missing christmas should have been the least of her problems, Its sad that our higher ups don't go to bat for us, She should have been taken and held on assaulting an officer, and not had the chance to go home for at lest six months, spending that time in NYC's finest facilities

[chewy]

Ya. I remember when Kelly took over. He came out with a big hoopla about how Customs HQ had talked to the US Attorney's office and we are now going to prosecute ANY person who willingly assaults one of our Officers. About a month after they came out with this news and hyped up how big of a deal it was etc etc etc we had a person in secondary who didn't want to go inside. One of our officers ordered them inside (no touching, no yelling, polite but firm voice...textbook) and BAM, the guy cold cocked our officer in the face. Everyone jumped the guy, cuffed him and such, management called OI and the US Attorneys office. OI responded but after talking to the attorneys and discussing this new arrangement it was decided that we weren't going to prosecute them afterall... Yet more BS from HQ about how they are looking out for us! B.S. For a lot of ports we get treated worse than friggin VA police, no one gives a shi@ about YOU, only that you are there to fill that spot on primary and push traffic. It blows my friggin mind how we DON'T do our job at all by direction of above and no one seems to care... until something gets in!!! Then, they'll accuse me of being lax. I'll say "but my chief/supervisor said to 'let the trucks go and just collect the paperwork as downtime and we'll run it later when traffic clears up' so that's what I did" and the reply will be "well, if management told you to jump of a bridge would you?" But then when we have people that actually ask questions and check trailers or cabs to do some enforcement after we are told specifically not to and to just let trucks go they get written up or verbally council for being insubordinate! If I didn't already have years of service I'd quit and go work on an ambulance or something. I SERIOUSLY hope that a change of ports will help me get out of my hateful attitude to wards CBP. If not I may just end up applying for one of those GS5-7 jobs I've been looking at. I don't mind the pay cut so much but it'll mean leaving my wife (she won't quite or come with me) and that's going to be hard. Unfortunately I'm only about a year of this ridiculous "One Farce At The Border" away from that. :mad: