Police Union, Long Beach Negotiators to Resume Talks : Labor: City Council lines up solidly with management in what has evolved into an acrimonious power struggle.

Police union and city negotiators are scheduled to return to the bargaining table Friday to resume discussions in what has evolved into an acrimonious power struggle between the union and city management.

The City Council last week was on the verge of declaring an impasse in the contract talks. But after union officials indicated they had a new contract offer to discuss with the city, the council Tuesday agreed to extend bargaining sessions for at least another two weeks.

“In bargaining and negotiating sessions, there’s no such thing as a final offer,” said Mike Tracy, president of the Long Beach Police Officers’ Assn. He declined to discuss details of the union’s new offer.

Despite 13 bargaining sessions since March, the city and the police association have made little progress on several key management issues that sharply divide the two sides.

Union officials have contended that the city manager and police chief--both of whom were hired since the last contract was adopted--are attempting to bust the powerful union and wrest away longstanding staffing practices cherished by rank-and-file police officers. City officials insist they are only trying to bring the department’s personnel policies in line with those of most other police agencies, eliminating costly and inefficient staffing procedures and giving the chief the management muscle he needs.

“I think the union has over the years put itself in a very strong position and has acquired prerogatives that are normally management prerogatives,” Councilman Tom Clark said, reflecting the council mood. As a player on the local political scene, the union has often enjoyed council support in the past, but in this contract year, the council is lining up solidly with management.

One of the major sticking points in the bargaining involves personnel transfers. Chief Lawrence L. Binkley wants complete discretion to transfer officers from one division to another, while the union wants to retain restrictions, taking into account seniority and barring the use of transfers as a disciplinary measure.

Other matters of contention revolve around patrol car staffing and shifts. Pointing to a recent consultant’s report that criticized the department’s use of two-officer patrol cars at night and four-day workweeks, management wants to cut back on both, sending out one-officer cars on late shifts and assigning more officers to five-day weeks.

Also at issue is management’s move to stop paying the salary of the union president, a police officer who is released from normal duties to tend to union business. Finally, the city wants to drop the so-called evergreen clause, which keeps one contract in effect until the next is adopted, however long negotiations drag on.

“It would be a severe blow to our organization to lose these issues,” Tracy said, nonetheless contending that the union is not engaged in a power struggle with the city.

“It’s not an issue of power or control as it’s been reported. It’s an issue of fairness,” he said. The transfer safeguards and four-day weeks, he continued, have been won over the years in negotiations, at the expense of wage increases.

While management insists it is making up the take-aways with a salary package that would include bonuses for working five-day weeks or staffing one-officer cars at night, the union says it has no way of knowing how many officers would benefit.

Had the council declared an impasse this week, it could have voted to unilaterally adopt the city’s last contract offer, a move that would have likely set off both a legal and political war between the police union and city leaders.

Contacted by Tracy, an official of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor on Monday had already faxed letters to city leaders, warning that the city would be violating its police contract and labor laws if it imposed a new contract.

Last week, union Vice President Terry Holland also said that if an impasse were declared, the union would mount a door-to-door campaign to gain public support and even start airing the dirty laundry of top city officials. “We know where the bones are buried,” he said.

Underlining the contract fight are increasing complaints about police service, an escalating crime rate and the lingering sour taste of a nationally televised police brutality sting, in which a Long Beach police officer was secretly filmed shoving a suspect into a plate glass window.