Fraternal Order of Police Union

Collective bargaining enhances the employer-employee relationship. Through their representatives, both parties engage in negotiations to come to an agreement on various issues in employment. However, before engaging in negotiation, they formulate key strategies that help in achieving the desired results. Wilkinson et. al (2014) explain that the following concerns represent the strategies of the Fraternal Order of Police union, otherwise referred to as the voice of the officer.

Salary

Salary is the key reason unions get into negotiations with employers. Unions demands for good employees’ wages and salaries hence discouraging wage and salary inequality. The police union is in disagreement with the current Metro Government salary increase formula in relation to the tax revenue growth due to the state of stagnation the economy experienced leading to no revenue growth. To solve the issue, the union recommends the government to adopt a new formula where the employees will be entitled to an annual salary increase of 4.75% to 5% despite the state of the economy therefore necessitating conformity with the existing standards of living.

Health insurance

Like any other Metro Government employees, the police officers are entitled to health insurance for medical coverage in hospitals. However, the union is determined to resist any changes as it supports the previous health care insurance plan, co-pays, and premiums.

Health and safety

Every employee is exposed to health hazard while at the workplace. If not well prevented, these hazards cause accidents and diseases to the employees. The Metro Government should put in place the measures to plan, control, and prevent hazards by providing them with the protective equipment, training on machine operations, and ensuring high standard sanitation to all employees during working hours. In the case of any unplanned event scheduling, an employee should be compensated for working overtime. Moreover, the government should ensure frequent inspection and replacement of equipment as well as their availability when required. Healthy and safe officers will be motivated to perform their duties optimally since they have all that they need for their jobs.

Court pay

Both the active and retired Louisville Metro Police are entitled to a pay when they appear in court outside their scheduled working hours. However, the union is not contented with the rate and demands for its increase from $60 to $61.

Special assignment pay

The union demands that the officers receive payment if they perform the following tasks:

If officers work overtime, they should get per hour pay for eight-hour workers and one and a quarter hours pay for employees working on ten-hour shift.

Call-in pay for employees each time they are called outside their normal shifts.

Shift differential pay of 10% for all employees starting shifts between 11 pm and 2 am.

Additionally, the officers handling the dogs and the field training officers should get paid for working overtime.

Paid and unpaid leaves

All officers are entitled to annual leaves and holidays as well as personal hours. Since it is not compulsory for one to take a leave, the leaves can be accumulated and paid at the end of the year. Other leaves include bereavement leave just in case of death of an immediate family member and the absence leave in case of an urgent situation. The union demands for increase of the maximum actual hours so as to prevent those who cannot take leaves from exceeding their expected working hours.

Sick leave

Officers are allowed to request for their paid sick leaves whenever they are unable to perform their duties due to illness. The government also offers sick leave to the officers when an immediate family member is affected but the union insists that grandparents should also be included under this consideration. Nevertheless, the officers are also free to request for lighter duties when ill.

Personal property

Officers’ properties damaged while in their line of duty should be reimbursed or compensated by the government. This includes the replacement of all uniform torn during performance of duties as well as any equipment lost under similar circumstances.

Clothing and equipment allowance

The union upholds the continued government furnishing of uniform and equipment at no cost. It also demands for clothing allowance increase from $15,000 to $25,000 due to inflation, as well as offering all non-uniformed officers transferred to uniformed functions with uniform placement allowance. Though uniform is a government concern, employees should also be represented in the committee for recommendations on equipment and uniform changes.

Legal protection

The union demands defense provision by the government to any person involved in tort arising from their actions within the scope of employment, and therefore demand for representation by the office of the District Attorney. Additionally, all payments resulting from good faith performance by officers should be met by the government. This also includes the defense of former police officers sued for actions while in the line of duty.

Grievance procedure

The union supports the introduction of arbitration as the last stage of dispute resolution. According to Troy (2016), the process involves the grieved employee presenting grievances to their immediate supervisors in writing, who in turn review the grievance together with the union representative to determine validity. If the results are not pleasing, the grievance is taken to the next level of supervisors and union representatives are not supposed to be present in the review. If the results are still not satisfactory, the grievance is brought to the highest level of company management and union representatives. Arbitration is the final step where a third party is included after the management fails to deliver a solution to the grieved party.

References

Troy, L. (2016). Beyond Unions and Collective Bargaining . Routledge.

Wilkinson, A., Donaghey, J., Dundon, T., & Freeman, R. B. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of Research on Employee Voice: Elgar original reference . Edward Elgar Publishing.