Telecommunications, Electromagnetic Fields, and Human Health

Recent news items revealed concerns about Electomagnetic Fields [EMFs], most recently from 5G antenna networks that are speeding up internet service in communities.  Below is the Abstract of an article prepared by Dr. Robert Michaels [bam@ramtrac.com], that was published in the Electromagnetic Claims Journal.

Abstract

Telecommunication generates electromagnetic fields (EMFs) at radio and microwave frequencies.  Transmitters have proliferated with siting of wireless communication networks, often co-located among other transmitters.  ‘Cell’ phones also have proliferated, representing small transmitters used in contact with human heads, and stored on human bodies.  Telecommunications equipment is ubiquitous, and EMF exposure prolonged, raising the issue of possible health risks.  Such risks, if any, must be managed.  For example, epidemiology studies reported higher exposure to analog cell phone EMFs among brain cancer patients than among controls, but those risks were ‘managed’ via replacement of analog phones with today’s digital phones, which have not been associated with human cancer.  

Challenges remain, recently from rodent bioassays that show dose-related association of lifetime exposure to cell-phone-type EMFs with heart schwannomas (cancers of schwann cells, which insulate nerve cells) in male rats, though not females.  Human cancer risk, if any, remains to be characterized and quantified, which partly will depend upon whether EMFs indeed are non-ionizing as has been assumed, and whether a threshold or non-threshold (genotoxic) mechanism caused the cancers in the male rats.  Health concerns have motivated further exposure reduction suggestions, and sometimes opposition to siting transmitters.  

Credible, objective explication of technical information to primarily non-technical audiences is necessary to support informed public participation and dispassionate weighing of telecommunications risks and benefits in community decision-making.  

Ultimately, experts and non-experts should adhere to the ‘precautionary principle’, requiring adoption of reasonably (but not excessively) pessimistic exposure and risk assumptions, whether or not they are likely to materialize.

The full text of article can be downloaded at no charge from ResearchGate.net via the following URL:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331747414_Telecommunications_Electromagnetic_Fields_and_Human_Health

Authority to modify or vacate an arbitration award may be limited by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement

A collective bargaining agreement between the parties provided that if an employee was found guilty of charges involving an assault, the appointing authority had the power to set and impose a penalty.

An employee was charged with assaulting another worker. Found guilty of the charge, the penalty imposed by the appointing authority was dismissal. The union, on behalf of the employee, appealed the appointing authority's determination to the Tripartite Arbitration Board [Board] in accordance with the controlling contract disciplinary grievance procedure.

When the Board denied the grievance but modified the penalty imposed to a suspension rather than termination, the appointing authority filed an Article 75 petition pursuant to §7511 petition seeking to vacate the Board's action. The appointing authority contended that the Board had exceeded its authority when it modified the penalty the appointing authority had imposed.

Supreme Court agreed and vacated that portion of the award that modified the penalty imposed by the appointing authority. The Appellate Division subsequently rejected the union's appeal challenging the lower court's ruling. The Appellate Division said that a court could vacate an arbitrator's award for a limited numbers of reasons, including:

a. the violation of a strong public policy;

b. finding that the award was irrational; or

c. determining that the award clearly exceeded a specific limitation on the arbitrator's powers.

Here the Appellate Division found the limitation described in (c) above controlled as the collective bargaining agreement specifically provided that where the Board sustained the disciplinary charges, the penalty imposed by the Authority must be sustained as well.

Accordingly, the Court ruled that the Board, having sustained the assault charge, had no authority to modify the penalty fixed by the appointing authority -- termination of the employee.

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

https://www.leagle.com/decision/1997660239ad2d4211268

Imposing the penalty of termination on an employee found guilty of misconduct following a disciplinary hearing overturned as "shocking to the conscience of the court"

A police officer was found guilty of misconduct after a disciplinary hearing. The Police Commissioner imposed the penalty of  dismissal. The Appellate Division modified the penalty imposed on the Petitioner by the Commissioner that resulted in the officer's termination and the forfeiture of his retirement benefits "on the law" and remanded the matter to the Commissioner "for determination of a lesser penalty."

Petitioner had admitted to the theft of $20 from an undercover officer illegally parked near a hydrant and acting intoxicated in the course of an integrity test* targeting Petitioner's partner. Evidence supported the finding that Petitioner also made false statements in the course of an official investigation in violation of the Police Department's Patrol Guide.

Although the Appellate Division concluded that there was no basis to disturb the credibility determinations of the Hearing Officer, it found that "under the circumstances presented here," the penalty of termination and forfeiture of [Petitioner's] pension "shocked the court's conscience and sense of fairness" and thus violated the so-called Pell Doctrine.**

The court opined that the question of whether a penalty is so disproportionate to the misconduct as to shock the conscience requires a case by case factual analysis and found mitigating factors that required it to vacate  the penalty of dismissal and the deprivation of Petitioner's right to his accrued pension. The Appellate Division characterized such a disciplinary penalty as an "affront to our sense of fairness" and "shock[s] the conscience" by the Appellate Division.

Considering mitigating factors, the majority of the court,*** conceding that Petitioner's conduct was "troubling," concluded that Petitioner's misconduct "was an aberration from his otherwise exemplary career," noting that Petitioner:

1. Had nearly twenty years of police service with the Police Department, prior to which he served in the United States Army for eight years where he was a sergeant in the military police, receiving an honorable discharge;

2. During his tenure with the Police Department, Petitioner had no formal disciplinary history, and received a total of 38 medals for "Excellent Police Duty" and "Meritorious Police Duty;" and

3. The loss of Petitioner's pension would work a financial hardship on his wife, who is diagnosed with cancer, and their now 10-year-old daughter.

* An integrity test places a police officer in a lifelike scenario to ascertain whether the officer would act in accordance with the law and Police Department policies.

** Pell v Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale and Mamaroneck, 34 NY2d 222, generally referred to as the "Pell Doctrine."  Essentially the Pell Doctrine instructs that any permissible disciplinary penalty may be imposed on an employee found guilty of one or more disciplinary charges and specifications by an appointing authority or arbitrator unless the court finds that, considering the circumstances underlying the disciplinary action, such a penalty is "shocking to one's sense of fairness."

*** Judges Richter and Kern dissented in part in a memorandum by Judge Richter, concluded that in view of Petitioner's "on-duty theft of money and his subsequent false statements, both of which are offenses involving moral turpitude, the penalty of termination is not so disproportionate to the offense as to shock one's sense of fairness."

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2019/2019_06568.htm

Click here to Read a FREE excerpt from NYPER's

A Reasonable Disciplinary Penalty Under the Circumstances