Christopher Spotlight Shifts to Police Union : Law enforcement: Many recommendations depend on negotiations with the 8,100-officer protective league.

After months as a bit player in the Rodney G. King controversy, the city’s influential police union is stepping into a lead role as attention shifts from the removal of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to the overhaul of his department.

In fact, several council members and city officials predict that whatever lasting changes emerge from the incident will be shaped in large part through closed-door bargaining sessions with representatives of the 8,100-member Los Angeles Police Protective League.

“This is the nitty-gritty,” said Councilman Joel Wachs. “The stuff that has been highly publicized is relatively inconsequential compared to the things that are going to be negotiated” with the union in the coming months.

Many of the Christopher Commission proposals require labor negotiations, city officials say. The list includes psychological testing of officers already on the job, incentive pay to keep experienced officers in the field and changes in how officers are disciplined, union officials say.

“Those are the kinds of fundamental, institutional policing changes that go to . . . how police officers do their job and relate to the public,” Wachs said.

Union leaders have indicated a general willingness to be cooperative, but are remaining tight-lipped about their bargaining and political strategy. “We are not going to negotiate in a public forum,” said Bill Violante, the union’s new president.

But Violante indicated that rank-and-file officers are concerned about much of the Christopher Commission report, which if implemented could have dramatic impact on how officers do their jobs, how they are disciplined and how they are paid. “Everything in that report is important,” he said.

He also acknowledged that officers are very worried that the department will be politicized. While he declined to elaborate, City Hall sources said there is concern among police officers that politicians will assume a greater role in hiring and firing future police chiefs if the proposals are adopted.

The union is in a powerful position, politically and legally, to protect its members’ interests, city officials and political observers say. Records show the union has made nearly $43,000 in city campaign contributions in the past six years, most of it going to current City Council members.

And with crime and drugs consistently at the top of local polls on voter concerns, the endorsement--or more important, the opposition--of the city’s police officers at election time can be all important in a close campaign.

“They are a significant political force,” said campaign consultant Steve Afriat, who has worked for several council members. “And the people that don’t like police are people that don’t tend to turn out (on Election Day) in high numbers.” White, conservative voters are making up a disproportionately large share of the voters in many council districts, Afriat said.

Council members acknowledge the police union’s influence, but they say it will not sway them.

“As far as I’m concerned, it means nothing,” said Councilman Marvin Braude, who is chairing the special committee now considering the Christopher Commission proposals.

What clearly does mean something is a complex body of state labor laws and court rulings that, in effect, would allow the police union to dictate the speed at which some of the Christopher Commission proposals move ahead.

“The leverage the union has is taking (the negotiations) through all of the procedural hoops,” said Assistant City Atty. Frederick Merkin, a labor relations specialist. Merkin and others say significant portions of the Christopher Commission proposals could take years to implement if the union digs in its heels during bargaining.

“The league is sitting in the catbird seat here,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. “And I’m sure they will make every effort to leverage their position.” All manner of seemingly unrelated issues ultimately could become tangled up in the negotiations--from officer pay and vacations to the entire management structure of the Police Department, Yaroslavsky and other council members said.

The union’s power was illustrated recently in an unrelated matter. Officials said the council had to give veteran officers additional vacation days before the union would agree to make all officers subject to mandatory drug testing. The union is now challenging the constitutionality of the tests anyway.

With the city in the depths of a recession-driven fiscal crunch, there is little hope that Mayor Tom Bradley and the council can buy union cooperation with raises and other costly trade-offs.

If talks bog down after a good-faith effort, the mayor and the council could forge ahead over the union’s objections and place a package of the Christopher proposals before voters next year, said Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani.

But that approach carries a political price, other officials said, because the police union could wage an all-out campaign against the ballot measure or even engage in sickouts and work slowdowns.

“It’s very important that we have (police union) support on this . . . or it’s meaningless,” said Police Commissioner Michael Yamaki, who has been meeting with officers at station house roll calls. “The true people who are going to implement these reforms are out on the line.” It is especially important that police officers embrace the shift to community-based policing espoused by the Christopher Commission, Yamaki said.

If politics and protracted labor negotiations stall the proposals, a citizens committee also could attempt to bypass City Hall and put the Christopher Commission proposals directly before the voters through an initiative.

Merkin, the assistant city attorney, said it is not clear under existing law whether voters could amend a police union contract by initiative. “It’s a provocative question, however,” he said.

Attorney Mickey Kantor, a Christopher Commission member who is helping organize a citizens watchdog committee to press for the commission’s recommendation, said his reading of the law is “the people have the ultimate power to do whatever they want.”

Kantor said the citizens committee, which includes prominent business and community leaders, will sponsor an initiative if elected officials are unwilling or unable to produce a package of proposals that resemble the Christopher Commission recommendations.

Violante, of the police union, declined to say whether his organization would challenge such an initiative, saying he did not want to telegraph his organization’s strategy.