The San Francisco POA: Founding member of PubSecAlliance

Today we begin a series focusing on the organizations who have officially affiliated with PubSecAlliance and are providing crucial financial support to the effort to build an online community of law enforcement associations and their members in the United States, Canada and around the world.

For today’s profile we take a look at the San Francisco Police Officers Association, one of the first organizations to become a founding member of PubSecAlliance.

For more information on how you can become a member,
call Cynthia Brown at 617-852-8484.

Sergeant/Inspector Martin Halloran
San Francisco Police Officers Association

The San Francisco POA represents 2100 active-duty members up to captain, and another 1000 retired officers. Currently San Francisco officers are among the highest paid in the country with a starting pay of close to $90,000 and a 90% pension at age 55.

Marty Halloran, the president, assumed the corner office this past spring after the retirement of Gary Delagnes, the longest serving president in the organization’s history and the man many observers say was largely responsible for the association’s spectacular gains over the last 20 years.

Watch this video of Gary passionately defending his members – the best one we’ve seen but we’d love to see yours.

“Working actively in the POA has been an interesting personal journey,” Marty Halloran says. “Despite all the hassles, I can say, in all honesty, that fighting for our members as they do the really hard job they signed on for, has enhanced my sense of duty, commitment and service.”

Back in 1970, the San Francisco POA experienced a real sea change. That year, a group of outspoken and politically savvy officers formed a sub-group within the Association with the intent to aggressively campaign and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. That group called themselves “The Bluecoats.”

In 1972, the first slate of Bluecoats was elected to run the SFPOA. The president was Jerry Crowley who would become one of the most commanding and effective leaders – some would say infamous — in the organization’s history. Following the election of the Bluecoat slate into office, the Association was completely transformed from a social organization into an aggressive employee rights organization. No more were the monthly meetings mere gabfests held over a corned-beef and cabbage buffet. Meetings under the Bluecoat agendas became boisterous, often contentious, table-pounding sessions of grievance, strategy and debate.

In 1975, San Francisco police held the first labor strike by a big city police department since the Boston Police Strike of 1919. The SFPOA, led by Jerry Crowley and the Bluecoats, led its members out of the stations and onto the picket lines. The San Francisco Firefighters joined in the strike, which lasted for three chaotic days before a settlement was reached with Mayor Alioto and the Board of Supervisors.

The short-term gain was an impressive 13% salary increase. (One which was due to the cops and firefighters through a salary formula, but which was not being honored by the civic leaders of the day.)

The long-term fallout was significant. Soon following the strike, San Francisco voters created a lesser Tier II pension system, dissolved the previously enacted salary survey, and destroyed all vestiges of public support and confidence in the city’s first responders. It took nearly 20 years of hard campaigning and fence mending to improve the deficient Tier II Retirement that, even today, stands inferior to that system which was in place prior to the strike.