National City Police Call in Sick : Action Follows Impasse in Talks

Two days after reaching an impasse with management during contract negotiations, National City police officers staged an apparent sickout Monday, leaving their department scrambling to provide law enforcement on the busy holiday.

Acting Police Chief Wayne Fowler said his entire day- and swing-shift crews, a total of 24 officers and other personnel, called in sick and failed to report for work.

Although angered by the action, Fowler said assistance from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol prevented any dilution of protection in National City.

The city held an evening celebration, complete with a fireworks show that attracted about 10,000 people, but no unusual law enforcement problems were reported during the day, Fowler said.

‘We Had an Intuition’

“We’re delivering all law enforcement services without interruption,” Fowler said. “We had an intuition that some labor action of this sort might happen, and we’ve had a plan we were ready to use in the event it did.”

Fowler, who has been acting chief since the firing of Terry Hart in late March, said he was “extremely disappointed” in the officers who failed to report for duty.

“I believe that in this profession you make a commitment and that there are other ways to resolve these problems besides this type of tactic,” he said. “This was quite ill-advised.”

Everett Bobbitt, an attorney representing the National City Police Officers Assn., would not confirm that Monday’s widespread absences amounted to a sickout. He did, however, say that low morale among officers, spurred by a series of events this year, reached rock bottom when contract negotiators reached an impasse Saturday.

“There is a lot of history here that may put things in perspective,” Bobbitt said. “National City has the highest crime rate in the county, and the city’s proposed budget would reduce the level of staffing, cutting two police officers and up to four positions overall in the department.”

Bobbitt said that proposal--first presented to the officers Wednesday, the night before their contract expired--conflicts with a blue-ribbon study that recommends an increase in police on the streets.

Besides the proposed staffing cuts, the firing of the outspoken Hart has soured relations between patrol officers and city management. Hart, who had led the 73-officer department for a decade, was fired by the City Council after an apparent disagreement over budgetary issues. During his tenure, he was often criticized for the department’s treatment of Latinos, who make up about half the city’s population of 55,000.

The abrupt firing angered the Police Officers Assn., and the group issued a blistering statement labeling the dismissal “excessive, unjustified and without merit” and charged that the council had placed “petty politics above their moral and ethical obligation to support progressive safety services.”

Disagreement over salary is the other ingredient in the contract dispute, Bobbitt said. The city is offering a 7% raise for the coming year, and the officers’ last demand was for a 14% pay increase.

“When you consider that the city granted a 23% increase in pay to the Fire Department, that 7% offer is really ridiculous,” Bobbitt said, adding that no new contract talks have been scheduled.

Although conceding that the timing of the sickout could not have been worse, Fowler said both the Sheriff’s Department and the CHP were providing ample help in patrolling National City on Monday.

“Obviously, today is an extremely heavy workload, and we had 10 additional people who are normally off scheduled to be on duty,” Fowler said. “With the Fourth of July celebrations, the traffic will be heavy, there will be people using alcohol at the beach all day, and other problems. I assume they picked today because of the impression it would make.”

Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache said his department had provided help to National City in two phases. Six detectives from the Lemon Grove and Imperial Beach substations were called in to work overtime and patrol the city beginning at noon. An additional 30 officers--both off-duty detectives and reserve deputies--were assigned to provide security and traffic control during the evening celebration at Kimball Park.

A CHP spokeswoman confirmed that the agency was providing assistance with the evening event, but she had no estimate of the number of officers assigned.

Roache said the county likely will bill National City for the manpower.

If the sickout should continue today, Fowler said, he will begin the process of requesting mutual aid from law enforcement agencies to provide long-term protection.

In Oceanside, meanwhile, contract negotiations between police and city management are continuing. Last month, rumors circulated that the Police Officers Assn. was contemplating a strike on Independence Day, but members voted Thursday to report for work.

The major issue in the Oceanside dispute is salary. The city’s last offer was for a 3.5% pay increase, while the officers have asked 7.5%.