Rally and billboards win the day
Going four years without a pay raise was bad enough, but when city officials were going to give zeroes for the fifth straight years, members of the Nashville, Tennessee FOP decided they had had enough.
Despite a drastic drop in crime, and a lot of reaching out to the Mayor, City Council, and community, the effort to get the step increases reinstated was going nowhere. That’s when the cops, along with other city employees, decided to hit the streets.
Crime in Nashville is down about 12 percent, according to the Nashville chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police but four years ago, the Nashville Metro City Council put a freeze on all departments’ incremental pay increases, which used to be about three percent per year. That’s why the launched a $20,000 advertising campaign that includes yard signs and billboards posted around the city that compares the drop in crime to the drop in real wages for the city’s police officers.
“We needed to be compensated for our hard work, our diligent effort and our continued vigilance for the city,” noted Bob Weaver, a sergeant with the Metro Nashville P.D. who serves as the president of the Nashville F.O.P. Lodge 5. “We have officers who anticipated getting these increases as they were sending children through school, and they haven’t gotten those. And they’ve had to make do on what they were making in 2009.”
The effort culminated in a rally in front of city hall. Watch Bob Weaver speak to the crowd in the WKRN-TV NASHVILLE video.
The tough tactics which had a positive take on the situation kept focused on the drop in crime and the cops’ role in that as opposed to personal attacks on the mayor or council, worked. Last we heard, the city council was posed for reinstating the step raises for Nashville’s Finest.
What’s your though on the effort? Could you do something similar in your city, town or county? We want to hear your ideas so write them out below in the “Comments” section.