Officers will gain

The article "University confident union won't strike" [10/23/98, YH] may have left readers with the mistaken impression that Yale believes its officers should receive the same disability benefit as all other unionized Yale employees. Yale police officers actually enjoy a superior disability benefit now and would receive an even better benefit under Yale's contract proposal.

Currently, Yale's long-term disability benefit provides a police officer with 60 percent of his or her former salary for the length of the disability. This benefit includes any long-term disability, regardless of whether it is job-related. For example, a disabling injury that occurs in the home would entitle an officer to the benefit. An officer can qualify even if he or she is disabled only from the job of police officer, and can perform other jobs. Other unionized employees at Yale must be disabled from performing any kind of work before qualifying for the same benefit.

Yale has already proposed enhancing the current long-term disability benefit when an officer suffers a disabling injury or illness in the line of duty, such as when making an arrest. "Line of duty" covers both on-duty and off-duty situations that are police-related. For those "line of duty" disabilities, in addition to the current benefit of 60 percent of salary, officers would receive:

* free health coverage until the end of the disability or until retirement;

* continuation of full pension credit accrual while disabled, to a maximum of 25 years;

* the right to earn up to 100 percent of former police salary by combining the full disability benefit with earnings from another job.

The University believes these proposed enhancements in disability benefits are appropriate for a police officer who is injured while protecting the community, regardless of whether the officer is on duty at the time.

The police officers' union agrees, except that it also wants these disability enhancements to be provided for any disabling injury or illness, such as an injury suffered while an officer is on vacation or performing household chores.

--Tom Conroy, Acting Director of Public Affairs

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