According to a spokesman for the PA Department of Labor & Industry, a recent ruling that the supervision of Reading surveillance cameras should qualify as “police work” has more to do with labor agreements than matters of privacy. Spokesman Christopher Manlove told NewsLanc on Thursday that this early ruling—still subject to exception—deals mainly with the contractual relationship between a police union and Reading’s police department, which operates the system.
“Privacy concerns are beyond the scope of what I can really talk about,” Manlove said.
The preliminary order came earlier this month from Jack E. Marino, who serves as a hearing examiner for the Labor Relations Board, a division of the Department of Labor & Industry.
Don Spatz, the Reading Eagle reporter who wrote “Ruling: Police should man security cameras”, told NewsLanc that this decision will not likely come to bear on Lancaster’s extensive surveillance system.
In the case of Reading, Spatz said, the system is administrated by the police department yet largely staffed by civilians; this arrangement led the police union to claim unfair labor practices. Lancaster’s system, Spatz countered, is run by a private entity (the Community Safety Coalition), completely apart from our police department.
When NewsLanc asked Manlove whether this pending litigation could hold any bearing on Lancaster’s Community Safety Coalition, Manlove replied, “I can’t say yet that it would or it would not.”
