A former Dean College police sergeant spoke out Monday against school administration over a decision to terminate the entire police force allegedly over an attempt to unionize.
Former Sgt. Michael Carmody was helping to lead the unionizing effort at the Massachusetts campus. They felt Dr. Paula Rooney, president of Dean College, disliked police and didn’t have their best interests in mind. Not long after they began the process to form a union, however, Rooney replaced the entire campus police department with a private security company.
“We started to organize in June, as a union,” Carmody tells The Daily Caller News Foundation. “They were tipped-off in Mid-August and have been trying to get rid off us since.”
The police were informed Dec. 7 they were being replaced with the security firm TeamOps. In response the former police officers filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Alumni also started an online petition to put pressure on the school. The petition notes the decision puts students in a harmful situation since an actual police department is better equipped than a security company to handle a campus gunman.
“She keeps referring to it as an upgrade,” Carmody continues. “They are going to be paying the same amount for security guards who have less training.”
The college administration denies the mass termination has anything to do with the union. Instead, college personnel told the police it was an operational decision. When asked, the administration told them, without getting into any detail, that it was unrelated to the budget.
“I think that’s hogwash, its an excuse,” Carmody proclaims. “They didn’t want to have to deal with a union.”
Carmody and another sergeant involved in the unionizing drive were already facing a suspension before the mass termination. The college administration suspended them over what it claimed was a pair of lost keys. Carmody contested the move as just another excuse to derail unionizing efforts. The police department had already disciplined the officer who had lost her keys with a three-day suspension.
“Myself and another sergeant were told we were being suspended over a pair of lost keys,” Carmody notes. “My belief is that they used it as an excuse to suspend the two ringleaders.”
It will likely take at least a month before NLRB responds to the charges. Dean College did not respond to a request for comment by TheDCNF.
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