Union Courts LAPD Officers

Teamsters officials and several Los Angeles Police Department officers Tuesday launched a labor union organizing campaign that throws another wild card into the political intrigue surrounding the LAPD.

The union, one of the largest in the country, is seeking to represent the department’s 8,900 officers. They first would have to decertify the Police Protective League, which has represented LAPD officers for 75 years.

At a news conference outside the Police Academy in Elysian Park, a pro-Teamsters police officer said he and others are unhappy with recent contracts negotiated by the league and with the level of communication between league officials and members.

The officer, Sgt. Craig Lally, said he agrees with the league’s efforts to oust Chief Bernard C. Parks, who is seeking a second five-year term, as do about 200 others who openly back the Teamsters.

Several local union officials had speculated that the Teamsters would draw from Parks’ supporters in the ranks, and a Teamsters official said Monday that the drive was “about the chief and about representation.”

On Tuesday, however, that official, James Santangelo, president of Joint Council 42, distanced himself from the controversy about Parks, saying, “We don’t have a dog in that fight.”

Lally, an assistant watch commander in the West Los Angeles Division, said he approached the Teamsters nearly a year ago, soon after the league negotiated a three-year contract that gave officers a 16% raise but eliminated legal representation during internal department investigations.

Lally also said the department’s disciplinary procedures are too hard on officers.

Lally was one of 44 “problem officers” named in the 1991 Christopher Commission report, which addressed allegations of excessive force in the department.

The list named officers who had drawn six or more complaints regarding force or tactics from 1986 through 1990.

None of the complaints against Lally were upheld, and other officers have cited his case as evidence that the list was arbitrary and unfair.

Lally and other Teamsters supporters are now distributing blue pledge cards to officers to sign, stating that they no longer want to be represented by the league.

A return of about 3,000 cards will trigger an election between the Teamsters and the league, according to a union attorney.

However, the Teamsters could be blocked by an internal AFL-CIO procedure intended to prevent unions from raiding one another’s members.

Mitzi Grasso, league president, said the group is protected from such a raid because it recently joined the AFL-CIO, a federation of 66 national unions. The AFL-CIO has rules against member unions raiding other member unions.

But Santangelo and a Teamsters attorney said the league did not properly join the federation, and so is not protected. Santangelo said he lobbied AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney to reject efforts by the league to secure protection.

With 1.4 million members, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is one of the federation’s largest unions.

The Teamsters represents law enforcement officers in nearly 300 organizations, none as large as the Los Angeles force, Santangelo said.

Several police officers passing the news conference expressed reservations about joining a union that has a history of criminal ties and is operating under a federal consent decree that regulates internal elections and until recently tracked union finances.

To that, Santangelo noted that the LAPD is also under a federal consent decree that requires stronger oversight of problem officers.

“There are bad politicians, there are bad cops, there are bad businessmen,” he said. “If there are bad Teamsters in the organization, they don’t last long. The bottom line is, we care about working men and women and their families.”