Police union attorney Richard Poulson began his presentation to a three-person panel of contract arbitrators by saying no one other than Mayor Bill Peduto thinks Pittsburgh should be classified as “distressed” 12 years after first seeking financial protection under Act 47.
But despite the boom in construction and economic activity, the mayor, Poulson said, successfully lobbied state legislators to keep the city’s distressed status so he would have leverage in labor negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge #1 and six other unions. He called Act 47’s restrictive effects on the last two police contracts “devastating” to morale, recruitment and retention and asked the arbitrators to ignore them, which thanks to a 2012 amendment, they can.
“If you came down here from Mars, you’d have no idea Pittsburgh was “distressed,”’ he said. “He (Peduto) wants to be in Act 47 for this reason…so he can be the mayor that takes the city out of distress.”
But if you’d come from Mars, you might also think both the city and the union represented Whites, as neither team of negotiators had any African American representatives during the first day of hearings, April 8, at the DoubleTree hotel.
The hearings scheduled to continue this week and again in May, were open to the media for the first time. Khalid Raheem, national chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Party and who took advantage of the invitation to observe the hearings, noted the lack of Black representation and mentioned it to police Chief Cameron McLay during a brief recess.
“Hey, I am a union supporter, Pittsburgh is a union town,” said Raheem. “Police have a tough job and I have no problem with them being paid more—but not if they continue to profile and shoot Blacks.”
Raheem thanked McLay for his efforts to improve officer relations with the Black community and gave him a letter that he’d addressed to the mayor, the FOP and city council asking that any pay raises be tied to officer performance evaluations that include incidents of brutality and misconduct.
McLay, who along with Chief Legal Officer Lourdes Sanchez-Ridge and law department staff who represented the city, thanked Raheem, but said he did not know the details of the city’s presentation to the arbitrators and wouldn’t say so even if he did.
“The city will make its proposals next,” he said. “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on those at this time.”
As the hearing resumed, Poulson noted that the concessions mandated by Act 47 in the last two contracts had effectively eliminated collective bargaining and led to a situation where the pay disparity between city police and comparable Allegheny County police departments has doubled, increasing from 13 percent in 2004 to 26 percent in 2014.
The median salary for Pittsburgh officers is $60,780. The average median salary (the mean of seven municipal department median salaries plus the county police) is $81,825. Monroeville’s median salary is highest at $101,650. McKeesport’s is the lowest: $52,733.
This, Poulson argued, coupled with the elimination of retiree medical coverage and longevity pay for new recruits, loss of overtime and other restrictions, led to poor morale and massive attrition with 199 officers leaving since 2010 alone. Most left law enforcement all together, but 42 percent left for other police jobs, and 85 percent of them took jobs in Allegheny County.
Before negotiations broke down resulting in the arbitration hearings, the City had offered a 1 percent raise for 2016 and 2 percent raises in 2017 and 2018, saying Act 47 limits what it can spend. One of the city’s possible bargaining chips was removed last year when an arbitrator ruled officers did not have to live in the city.
Whether or not the city would offer more pay for the kind of “citizen control” over police conduct and discipline Raheem suggestions remains to be seen. The union’s final day of presentation is April 23. The dates for the city’s May presentation have not been set.
Once the presentations are completed, the three arbitrators, neutral arbitrator Bill Miller, police arbitrator Bryan Campbell and city arbitrator Rich Miller will announce their award in a few months. The ruling will establish the new contract and will be retroactive to Jan. 1.
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
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