Norfolk to vote on police union’s collective bargaining request Tuesday

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Norfolk City Council is poised to vote Tuesday night to reject a collective bargaining request brought forth by a local police union chapter.

The request from the Norfolk Chapter of the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, one of the two police unions that represent members of the city’s police force, comes just over two years after Virginia authorized collective bargaining for public sector employees.

It also comes just two weeks after Norfolk’s neighbor, Portsmouth, became the first city in Hampton Roads to OK collective bargaining. That effort there was led by the city’s fire union, though all general wage workers can be included under that collective bargaining umbrella.

City leaders in Norfolk instead want to press pause and move forward with current efforts to recruit and retain employees. Those include raises, a 5% raise for employees and additional 2.5% raise for public safety employees approved in this year’s budget, and benefits that city leaders believe set them apart from other public and event some private sector employers in the region, such as more time off and expanded tuition reimbursement.

“We want to do everything we can voluntarily to make the city of Norfolk an employer of choice,” said City Manager Patrick Roberts, who praised council members’ efforts in recent years. “That’s aggressively addressing compensation in the budget every year, looking at employee relations and employee working conditions, benefits that we provide. We think that the direction we’re taking, the recommendation we’ve made in the form of the ordinance, pushes all those things in the right direction.”

In addition to rejecting that request from the police union, the ordinance (R-9) would also formalize in writing the city’s preferred process for employee/employer relations, called “meet and confer.” Norfolk leaders also want to strengthen the city’s Employee Relations Committee program, whose representatives serve as a liaison between employees and the city. There are currently different committees for police, fire, operations (public works and utilities) and other general workers.

The main issue council has with approving collective bargaining is money, Councilman Tommy Smiegel said Monday, citing concerns over paying increased salaries.

“I don’t believe a majority of council wants to do collective bargaining. I’m not saying I’m for or against it,” Smigiel said. ” … You don’t want to create a situation with collective bargaining where you’re spending a lot more money on salaries, where you don’t have the money and it takes away from other resources. I think some of the employee groups understand that.”

Smigiel said he also had concerns that the PBA didn’t meet the requirements for a vote on the matter, and wishes the vote on the meet and confer was separate.

“If they want to codify a meet and confer process, then why aren’t we just voting on that instead of declining [the PBA vote],” Smigiel said. “I do believe there’s some outside political influences that want Norfolk to say they’re anti-collective bargaining.”

Going forward, Smigiel said he would like to see Norfolk add in a guarantee that unions such as the PBA do get a seat at the table in those employee relations committees going forward.

The Norfolk Chapter of the Southern States Police Benevolent Association’s efforts to increase bargaining power have coincided with recent historically-low staffing levels at the Norfolk Police Department, an issue that city leaders say is improving. They also come amid concerns that increasing the power of police unions can lead to corruption and shielding officers from accountability.

WAVY has reached out the union for comment but had yet to hear back at the time of publication.

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