$3 million dollar win

THEY DID THE JOB FOR THEIR COPS. From left to right, Adrian Pina CLEAT Vice President, Jim Jopling CLEAT Staff Attorney, Alyssa Perez Cleat Staff Attorney, and Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association and CLEAT Region 4A Director

This was the most expensive battle in the 55 year history of the El Paso Officers Association. Does your association have a similar story? If so, let everyone know in the comments section below.

It started on April 12, 2011, the beginning of one of the biggest and most expensive battles that the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association has ever faced in its 55 years of existence. It began with a simple email from the chief budget officer for the City of El Paso. It was sent to the police executive staff with a courtesy copy to the president of the Association. Just over 19 months later that simple email and others will have cost the City of El Paso just over $3 million dollars to fix a problem that could have been corrected if officials would have just listened to our objections which were grounded in the law.

Like most cities in Texas, El Paso pays its police officers on a wage scale average of other cities of similar size and financial makeup. This market approach has been accepted by numerous labor organizations along with city governments across the country because of its ease of understanding and fairness to both sides. It has given both sides a workable strategy to plan for future growth and stay competitive within the law enforcement market. There is, however, a flaw in the model.

El Paso police officers are always being compared to other officers around the state because of our exceptional training and excellent track record in various national crime polls. But our officers have always had substandard pay and benefits because of the lower standard of living that predominates in the towns around our city which are used as a means of deciding what we will earn.

The salaries of our officers are considered comparable to seven other cities in the southwest — Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque — but if you use a dollar for dollar comparison our officers’ pay ranks 20 percent below the poorest city on the scale.

The police association has realized that fact for years and has attempted to keep El Paso officers within the medium of all seven cities as noted in our contract.

The problem arose when other financially desperate cities started furloughing officers, cutting pay and violating collective bargaining or meet and confer agreements back in 2009 and 2010. It was an attempt to balance budgets on the backs of first responders.

The City of El Paso weathered the crash of the stock market very well during that time thanks to our city leaders and the support they got from all the city employees in El Paso. It is important to note that the police union agreed with two MOU’s that saved the City of El Paso almost $3.17 million over two years.

Currently the El Paso Police Department’s uniformed staffing level is at a 13 year low. Not since 1999 has there been so few cops protecting this city.

Even with all our support and the cut backs, the city’s financial leadership tried their best to use immoral tactics to manipulate the numbers so they could further reduce our pay below the medium range.

When you attempt to use the financial misfortune of others for your own gain something is wrong.

The El Paso POA made the decision to not tolerate any further pay cuts or benefit reductions. After several attempts to correct the problem, we filed a grievance to stop them. For one year the city ignored us but we kept up the pressure. Finally they faced the problem and admitted they were at fault.

“When the City of El Paso miscalculated its police officers’ pay scales, CLEAT was there to prosecute the EPMPOA’s grievance,” noted El Paso CLEAT Attorney Jim Jopling. “After marathon negotiations, the city agreed to settle the dispute on very favorable terms and pay its police officers over $1.2 million in back pay and benefits. The back pay includes overtime, shift differential pay and benefits.”

Another issue arose during the grievance procedure that worried many officers was that in addition to underpaying patrol officers, some members of the command staff were overpaid in 2012. As a result of the settlement, no officer who was overpaid will have to pay any of that money back.

The total cost for the errors to the city for all their miscalculations came in at $3 million dollars. This does not include the man hours it took to correct the pension contribution errors.

This issue was not just about a miscalculation in financial matters, it was more about city management ignoring the elected leadership of the El Paso POA and all the officers that we represent.

One thing many upper echelon managers forget is that they are all replaceable and at the end of the day they do report to the employees. We don’t work for them, they work for us. Police officers work for the citizens of El Paso not management and in turn the association works for its members.

The collective bargaining agreement is not subject to interpretation by management. The basic facts of fair labor practices are pretty straight forward. When city officials start to believe that they are better than others or smarter based on their position or title, they fall harder when their time comes and it always does.

This victory is not about financial gain or bragging rights because we won, it’s about the basic principles of equality and honesty and our hard fight for those principles paid off for our members and our city.

Submitted by Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Police Officers Association.

If your association has a similar story, win or loose, we want to hear about it. Send your story to cynthia@pubsecalliance.com