Union, Bellevue continue to negotiate (secret practice of taping employees’ phone calls)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20091227/NEWS01/712279893

By John Ferak
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A union of Bellevue (Ne.) city employees is demanding compensation because of the city’s once-secret practice of taping employees’ phone calls.

City officials have rejected that demand and also have refused so far to provide more detail about why the city started taping calls and what was done with the recordings.

The city and a group of employees who are union members have been negotiating since November, when The World-Herald first reported that phone calls at city hall were being secretly recorded.

Within days of The World-Herald’s report, City Administrator Gary Troutman notified city employees in an e-mail that Bellevue was ending the practice of recording incoming and outgoing phone calls, except for calls made into the police department and the city’s arson investigation unit.

The taping went on for more than a year in Nebraska’s third-largest city.

Recently, union members voted to request a special meeting with Mayor Gary Mixan and City Council President Carol Blood. The meeting could occur in early January, said Steve Carmichael, union president.

FULL story at link.