City Officials Discuss Recommendations to Keep Field Workers Safe

The Department of Employee Relations has come up with 14 recommendations to keep city employees out in the field safe. 

On Thursday, there was a special meeting at city hall to go over the proposals with the Common Council. Following the tragic death of Special Enforcement Inspector Greg "Ziggy" Zyszkiewicz, city officials came together to review department policies and practices. 

"We are looking to protect our employees that are working in the field. All of them are coming from the employees who day in and day out are out there," said Maria Monteagudo, Director of Employee Relations. 

There are nearly 1,500 city employees who work out in the field. These are men and woman who work as nurses, contractors and special enforcement inspectors. 

After the employee relations spoke with the departments, it came up with 14 recommendations. 

These include: 

  • City vehicles
  • Personal vehicles for use on city business
  • Uniforms/clothing items to identify workers in the field 
  • Personal alarm devices 
  • Mobile phones
  • Implementation of "flight plan" protocol
  • Protocols for working with Milwaukee Police Department 
  • Map of safe places
  • Situational awareness training
  • Sharing incident data between departments
  • Grief counseling and support
  • Employee safety assessment and feedback 
  • Guidelines for a "buddy system"

"It is my sincere belief that with city workers, management and policy makers working together that we truly have changes in practice and policy that will help to make workers safer moving forward," said Milele Coggs, Alderwoman District 6. 

For more on the recommendations, view the full report here

Employee Relations plans on reaching out to the departments this weekend to get information to start working on changes. Common Council will discuss the report at the next meeting to see how the city will fund some of these recommendations. 

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