MISSOURI- Springfield police and the city haven’t been able to agree on wages after 16 months of negotiations over what would be the first union contract for the police force.
The two sides, which have been trying to create contract language in four- and five-hour meetings in the conference room of the police chief, are now set to go to arbitration.
“It means it’s time to pull out the picket signs and protest,” the union wrote on its Facebook page. “Squad reps begin getting your schedules together for dates your squad can be represented in the picket lines. Dates and locations are being finalized.”
Pay for Springfield police officers who are in the union begins at 16.43 an hour, or about $34,174 a year, and progresses to $26.44 an hour, or about $55,000 a year.
The union represents officers, sergeants and corporals. Higher-ranking police employees are not in the union.
Mike Evans, the president of the police union, said the city wants to tie pay increases to the rate of inflation for at least the next two years which could effectively slash the scheduled pay raises by half or more.
“We’re not keeping up,” Evans said.
City police are currently working under an interim agreement which gave them a 1 percent pay raise plus the current merit raises.
Evans said it takes about 2.6 percent of the police payroll, or $700,000 to fund the merit raises. If the city ties those raises to the Consumer Price Index, 1.5 percent in 2013, those raises would be slashed.
He said the pay makes it difficult to retain officers. Evans said the city can have 331 officers but currently has 307.
In St. Joseph, hourly pay begins at $19.35, according to the Springfield police union. Independence starts its police at $20.18 an hour, according to the union.
Police Chief Paul Williams, who has been part of the city’s bargaining team that also includes two attorneys and the city’s director of human resources, declined to comment.
“I am not at liberty to discuss anything related to contract negotiations, which are ongoing, nor is any other member of either the City bargaining team(s) or bargaining team members of the respective bargaining units,” Williams said. “Negotiations are to be, have been, and will be conducted between the parties—not in the media.”
The police union, the Springfield Police Officers Association, was formed in 1969 but previously was barred by Missouri law from negotiating a contract.
That changed with decisions from the Missouri Supreme Court in 2012 that said public sector employees had the same right as private sector employees to bargain over pay.