Police Reject Contract; Warn of Job Actions

Angry San Diego police officers Wednesday voted resoundingly to reject their 1985-86 contract with the city, and police union leaders warned that various job actions, including a strike, would be considered in response to the impasse in negotiations.

The vote follows by a day the 7-1 City Council approval of a 5.5% pay increase for officers after an impasse was declared in the city’s negotiations with the San Diego Police Officers Assn.

About 750 officers, more than half of the 1,380-member association, showed up for the voting sessions Wednesday, and about 80 volunteered to serve on various committees that will decide how the union should respond to the contract.

Some arrived on horseback; others, members of the canine patrol, had dogs in tow.

“In other years, this didn’t seem like a big deal,” said one burly 20-year veteran on the force. “If I was running these meetings, we’d walk out of here in 15 minutes. You get tired of having it shoved to you year after year.”

A year ago, only 50 officers participated in the contract vote. “But that was before three officers were killed in the line of duty,” said Sgt. Ty Reid, president of the Police Officers Assn.

The new police contract includes a 5.5% pay increase, to take effect July 1, the first day of the next fiscal year, and the reinstatement of a disability retirement system that had been eliminated in 1981. The union had asked for a 5% raise on July 1, and another 5% raise on Jan. 1.

Reid said officers were angry and frustrated that the city had not “responded satisfactorily,” to the slayings of three San Diego police officers in the past year, and were sending a clear message to City Hall.

“Technically, there is no significance to the vote, but it sets a tone for how police work is going to be carried out in this city during the next year,” Reid said. The contract goes into effect regardless of opposition by the Police Officers Assn.

“The common expression of the officers is disbelief, followed quickly by anger. Many of them are angry enough to walk out. I don’t think the City Council understands the significance of the morale problem on this police force. These officers know their department has the No. 1 death rate in the nation, and the second-highest injury rate,” Reid said.

“If we are to prevent a mass exodus from this department, we can’t divorce the compensation level from the risk these officers are taking on the job.”

The declaration of impasse and the council vote to impose the police officers’ contract concluded a stormy round of labor negotiations that included a police association call for the resignation of City

Manager Ray Blair. Blair later quit, but for health reasons unrelated to those negotiations.

In 1979, the city’s voters narrowly rejected a measure that would have subjected salary negotiations for police officers to binding arbitration. Reid said the union would soon begin a drive to have a similar referendum placed on the ballot.

“We are going to take our pleas to the public in a number of forms, but this is one direction we’re pretty certain of,” Reid said. “Maybe the public’s mood has changed--maybe our contract problems will show why binding arbitration is necessary.”

Reid said he was stunned by the council’s action, and the union president was clearly discouraged by the lack of support for the officers’ salary proposals. Only Councilman Bill Cleator opposed the salary proposal Tuesday; Councilman Mike Gotch was absent. “I thought there would be more consideration given to the salary issue,” he said.

“Most of these council members weren’t around the last time the situation became this serious with the police officers,” Reid said. “In 1978, when our salaries were as low comparatively as they will be next year when compared to other departments, more than 700 officers left here over an 18-month period.

“These council members are going to find out firsthand how difficult things can be when the police officers have reached the boiling point. I warned them that it was time to make an expression of support for the officers, but that fell on deaf ears.”

Reid said the union planned to carefully monitor the coming city budget deliberations, when the City Council will decide how many officers will be added to the force in the next fiscal year.

Blair has proposed that 53 officers be added. But pressures from the Police Officers Assn. to add two-officer patrols in certain areas of the city in response to the shooting deaths of the three officers, and from various community groups to increase law enforcement in Balboa Park, make Blair’s proposal “ridiculously low,” Reid said.

Noting that among the nation’s largest cities, only San Antonio, Tex., has a ratio of officers to residents that is lower than San Diego’s, Reid said the “problems involving the size of the force have to be addressed immediately--they are as serious as our salary concerns.” (San Diego has 1.40 officers per 1,000 residents compared to 1.44 in San Antonio, 2.25 in Los Angeles and 2.83 in San Francisco.)

Members of the City Council were not anxious to comment on the police association statements. Councilman William Jones said it would “not be constructive to comment at all on what was discussed (in closed meetings) during the meet-and-confer process. The council’s position as a whole on the salary question is well-known.”

Councilmen Uvaldo Martinez and Dick Murphy did not return telephone calls from a reporter. Councilmen Ed Struiksma and Cleator were not available.

Jones said he and other council members would “seriously address the (safety and manpower) issues in budget deliberations. We are very concerned about having the right number of officers and about the other safety concerns.”