ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – It’s been two and a half years since the city created the Albuquerque Community Safety Department to help respond to 911 calls. Now, the group is asking the city to recognize them as first responders.

ACS workers have backgrounds in behavioral and mental health and social services. They only respond to non-violent and non-medical calls. Recently, they unionized, and this new ask is part of that.

ACS workers have recently joined the communication workers of America Local 7076 Union. They are hopeful this collective bargaining agreement will help them get more benefits as city workers.

“It took us about two years, and we started from the beginning, looking for a union and trying to establish what that would look like for our responders since the department is so new,” said Crystal Little, a vice president of the CWA Agency. 

Before joining the union, Little says it was odd to her and her coworkers that they did not receive the same benefits as other city employees who responded to 911 calls.

At first, she wrote it off as just being a part of a new department. But, years later, ACS workers are still not considered to be first responders.

So, why is it important that through this union, that they will be classified as a first responder?

“It would make it easier for us to collect some of the benefits that other first responders have, such as overtime, differentials, as well as protections when employees get injured or assaulted on the job,” said Little.

Last August, an ACS worker was shot by a high-powered BB gun near Coronado Park when responding to a distress call. They don’t believe the shooting was related to the call, and that only further complicated the situation.

“That individual was taken to get medical care, but we’re looking at a process for what that would actually look like for incidents. There’s currently not a process in place, and that really does vary from incident to incident and employee to employee,” said Little.

Little is hopeful, with the union’s help and the collective bargaining agreement, they will be able to establish standard operating procedures while still accomplishing the original goals of ACS.

“Well, the fight isn’t over, we keep moving forward. A lot of what we were doing was external organizing, and really making sure that people knew that we needed this. And now it’s going to be a lot of internal organizing, and really working with our responders, and working with our administration,” said Little. 

In the proposed budget from Mayor Tim Keller, he wants $19.3 million for its continues services and supporting 131 full-time positions.