On Veterans Day 2021, Lieutenant Lauren Mirizio who was on leave under New York’s General Municipal Law 207-c for an on-duty injury, discovered that she was being followed and photographed by a private investigator working on behalf of the City of Yonkers.
The Yonkers Police Captains, Lieutenants, and Sergeants Benevolent Association alleged that this work — monitoring officers on leave for potential fraud — belonged exclusively to the Department’s own Medical Control Unit (MCU) or Internal Affairs Division (IAD). The Association claimed that the City’s unilateral decision to outsource this surveillance violated its collective bargaining rights.
After a hearing, the ALJ applied the two-part test from Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, which requires a union to prove that the work in question was performed exclusively by bargaining unit members and that the outsourced tasks are substantially similar to that unit work. The judge found the Association failed on the first, critical prong.
The decision distinguished between three types of investigations conducted by the City. The MCU performs “home checks” — phone calls or door knocks — to verify an officer on leave is at home during their scheduled tour, an “attendance control” function. The IAD investigates administrative misconduct and criminal allegations against officers. The private investigators, contracted by the mayor’s office, focused solely on “GML 207-c fraud detection;” surveilling officers during non-work hours to uncover activities inconsistent with their claimed medical limitations.
“The record establishes that, at times, MCU and IAD investigators, (and even the private investigators) are at the same investigation scene, at the same time, monitoring the same target… If the duties of each department were interchangeable, the City could rely on the presence of only one investigator at a scene to report on attendance control, observed criminal activity, and GML 207-c fraud. However, the past practice confirms that the nature of the work of each investigatory department is not fungible.”
Testimony and City emails revealed that the use of private investigators for fraud detection was known within the department for years, with Association officials indirectly aware of the practice. The Association presented no evidence that bargaining unit members had ever performed investigations dedicated solely to 207-c fraud. “Absent evidence of exclusivity, there is no basis to find that the City’s use of private investigators for GML 207-c fraud monitoring has breached the alleged exclusivity.”
The ALJ also noted that the Association had attempted and failed to secure the fraud detection work for its members during recent contract negotiations, further underscoring that it was not recognized as existing unit work. Because the Association could not prove exclusivity, the ALJ did not reach the question of whether the private investigators’ duties were substantially similar to unit work, dismissing the charge in its entirety.
Yonkers Police Captains, Lieutenants, and Sergeants Benevolent Association v. City of Yonkers, 58 PERB ¶ 4544 (NY PERB 2025).