Judge: 1 police union not 2
Albany patrol officers, detectives currently split
An administrative law judge ruled earlier this month that the city’s patrol officers and detectives should be represented by one union rather than two.
Currently, the city’s police officers are divided between a patrol officers union and a detectives union, both represented by Council 82, and a third faction, which filed a petition with the state’s Public Employee Relations Board to break away from Council 82 and create an independent police benevolent association that would represent patrol officers and detectives.
The ruling sets the stage for city police officers to potentially leave Council 82, an umbrella law enforcement union that represents more than 3,800 officers statewide. Settling the dispute would also clear the way for the city and its police officers to begin negotiating a new contract.
In the decision, Administrative Law Judge Brittany Sergent based her ruling on the standard of whether officers and detectives are subject to shared workplace rules, salary structure, personnel practices and other areas of common interest.
Council 82 argued that detectives and police officers had differences that created conflicts of interest, such as clothing allowance, take-home cars and different rules around certain types of overtime and other factors.
Sergent found that the detectives’ interests were not overridden by those of the police officers. In her ruling, she found that though there were some differences in job duties and stipends, the union’s contract and executive board makeup provided enough representation for the detectives to be a part of a union that includes police officers.
Detective Kevin Flynn, president of the
detectives union, said the detectives had 30 days to file an appeal if they choose to do so.
If the detectives choose not to appeal, the patrol officers and detectives will have an election to decide between Council 82 and the PBA.
Mike Delano, interim president of the PBA, said he believes support for new representation is overwhelming.
“We’re not going to take it for granted but we seem to have the numbers,” he said.
Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s spokesman, David Galin, said in a statement that the city looked forward to discussions on the outstanding contract once the union dispute is settled.
“We are encouraged by PERB’S decision and look
forward to being able to negotiate a new contract that includes long-overdue raises for our police officers and detectives — something the city has been barred from doing because of widely publicized union strife that brought us to where we are today,” he said.
Greg Mcgee, president of the officer’s union, did not immediately return a request for comment. An attorney for Council 82 did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The union dispute stretches back several years and boils down to dissatisfaction over representation, both among detectives and patrol officers. Patrol officers and detectives have been a part of the same bargaining unit and represented by Council 82 in contract negotiations for years. Supervisors, including lieutenants and sergeants, used to belong
to that union as well, before splitting off about 15 years ago. After years of fruitless contract negotiations with the city and an arbitrator’s award in 2018 that left many officers unhappy, the union split into three groups over a few months in late 2018.
A precipitating event was a September 2018 meeting with Chief Eric Hawkins, who had just started with the department. Then-union President Dave Verrelli was in the meeting and made several requests and demands that detectives felt did not pay attention to their concerns.
In October, a group of detectives went to Council 82 and asked to form a separate bargaining unit in order to make sure their interests were well represented. Council 82 approached the city in November and it agreed to recognize that new unit,
with the caveat that the existing bargaining agreement would cover it.
Weeks later, a number of police officers who had their own frustrations with Council 82 filed a petition with the state PERB to break away and create a new PBA, one that would include the detectives. Many of the officers went with them and at one point, only 30 officers out of more than 200 were still paying dues to Council 82.
The intraunion fight delayed contract talks with the city for over two years. In 2018 before the detectives left the police officers union, an arbitrator awarded the union no raise for 2014 and a 1 percent raise for 2015, less than what the city offered in contract negotiations. The award was met with dissatisfaction among many of the officers, leading to more animosity toward their Council 82 representation.