Teamsters Criticize FOP

The Teamsters Union came out swinging yesterday against the city of Nashville and the Fraternal Order of Police, for negotiating what they called a “secret agreement.”

In an election last October, Metro’s 12-hundred police officers picked the FOP to represent them at the contract bargaining table with the city. The FOP came to an agreement with Metro last week, with only the three-percent city-wide raise, and a new clause in the contract – giving the FOP exclusive rights to represent police force for the next three years.

The Teamsters Union lost last October’s election by 9 votes, and says Metro Police officers need a professional union, not a fraternal organization that acts like a union. Teamsters coordinator Jesse Case says the FOP, because it is made up of police officers, has trouble taking the city to task over things like pensions, salaries, or even disciplinary hearings.

“The Fraternal Order of Police is supposed to be their union. The problem is that everyone in that union works for the chief. So they don’t push hard on issues of representation or the chief will push back. As opposed to the teamsters, who do not work for the chief, we can go ahead and work for these people without fear of reprisal. The chief can’t put me on midnights, ’cause I don’t work for him.”

But FOP President Ed Mason says the agreement wasn’t secret, and says Metro wrote the three-year representation clause which applies to all contracts.

“It was already there. Everybody’s of the perception that we’ve run out and had them stick it in there. We didn’t have anything to do with it. It was done last fall.”

Case says they’re going to press Metro Council to forgo the agreement between the city and the FOP, to allow for a new election in October. Case says on the 31st of August, some Metro officers will become part of the Teamsters Union, regardless of an election.

The Teamsters are also filing suit in Federal Court next week, charging the Metro Police department with violating federal law, by not allowing returning war veterans to have their old jobs back.