NJ Cops July18 | Page 35

The lasting impression of George’s impact lies within these sheets. According to Cernek, they contain a forensic detailing of every single contract negotiated in any department since George has been coordinating. That’s every contract for rank-and-file and superior officers. And George reminds that the greatness of the collective bargaining committee over the years was its ability to extract the details from the contracts and input them into the spreadsheets. From the inception, the contract warehouse offered detailed demographics – populations of each town, number of officers on the job, number of officers per 1,000 residents to compare department sizes. If a Local needed to draw a comparison to another town to make its case at the bargaining table, George wanted its members to be able to access that information down to the paragraph being referenced. If data counting sick-leave used by officers the past three years in departments throughout Burlington County was needed, the information was right there. “George created a breakdown to recall information with the touch of a button,” Cernek confirms. When George retired, the PBA might have mused about giv- ing him a gold spreadsheet rather than a gold watch. Cernek quips that there should be a bronze statue of George holding the spreadsheets posted in front of the PBA office. What makes George, George, however, goes way beyond the spreadsheets. He had a drive and passion to make things bet- ter one step at a time that is inherent to a consummate public servant. Policing prowess probably fueled George’s obsession to always be researching and reading for the next idea that could be used to gather more evidence. “I think his attention to detail has allowed us to grow our abil- ities to research and disseminate information,” Freeman ap- praises. “And he prides himself on absolute accuracy. It’s a lot like police work. We’re doing investigations, looking for informa- tion, interviewing people, gathering evidence and seeing how it relates to the law. In this case, it’s labor law. George was a great detective.” George could emanate information like a response to a Goo- gle search because he was so prepared. Cernek called George’s desire to be pre- pared his golden gift. It’s what Ko- var said fueled George’s great- ness at the bar- gaining table, what kept “these young CFOs from all the towns straight. They weren’t getting anything by George.” Because he was so pre- pared, and be- cause his moti- vation was to do everything for “the members As members who served on the PBA Collective Bargaining out there ev- ery day push- Committee knew, “He knew what he wanted. We didn’t ing around deviate from that,” explains Summit Local 55 State Dele- the black-and- gate Mike Freeman, who has succeeded George as collec- whites,” George tive bargaining coordinator. became a great asset at the bargaining table. The other side brought a negotia- tor who prepared for a few days, maybe a week. George prepared every single day for 50 years. “It was like bringing a BB gun to do battle with a tank,” Cernek testifies. A profound hunger for information Sitting with George at the table or in a meeting to prepare was like watching Rembrandt at the canvas or Beethoven at the pi- ano. He was very definitive on what was possible, he knew ex- actly what the governing body was going to offer, precisely what the Local’s counter should be and pretty much where the contract would end up. “He has that much ex- perience,” Free- man assures. And the oth- er exclusive at- tribute George brought to every The manual members received when attending the PBA table and every meeting was Collective Bargaining Seminar included more than 1,100 the ability to pages and contained “all the information needed to run procure infor- a Local.” mation from the labor law and fi- nance experts throughout the state. “I was with him many times when, if we needed information, George could make a call and talk to somebody nobody else would be able to get on the phone,” Cernek relates. “And they pretty much dropped whatever they were doing when George called.” Those labor law and finance gurus were the presenters at the annual PBA Collective Bargaining Seminar, the conference that grew from 30 members gathering in Brigantine for one day in 1986