Police vote to form union

The move comes weeks after a Brooksville officer, who help lead the effort, is fired.

By JOEL ANDERSON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 5, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - By the margin of a single vote, officers at the Brooksville Police Department have decided to form a union despite the recent firing of one of the effort's most visible leaders.

The votes were tallied at the department Thursday and the state employee relations commission approved the results later that day, allowing the officers to join with the Pinellas County Police Benevolent Association and to start collective bargaining with the city this month.

Of the 16 eligible officers who received ballots in December, 11 turned them in by the Thursday deadline. The vote was 6-5 in favor of forming the union.

"It's a victory to get in there," said Michael Krohn, who will represent the Brooksville union and is executive director of the Pinellas police association. "We hope to make it a better agency for the officers, the city and for the residents of Brooksville."

The move to unionize comes three weeks after Diana Lopez, 41, a two-year veteran of the department, was fired for reportedly leaving her post to dig through the computer files of her immediate supervisor.

Lopez, one of the leaders of the effort to form a union, was accused of violating 13 departmental policies, including theft for printing out a letter written by a supervisor about her, and insubordination.

Police Chief George Turner said her firing had nothing to do with her role in organizing the union.

"I never even considered her a union leader," Turner said Friday. "Her issues had nothing to do with the union. That was a totally separate issue; the facts speak for themselves."

Krohn, who will represent Lopez during her appeal to the city, said the punishment did not fit the violation in this instance. He accused Turner of trying to make an example out of his client.

"I've never seen something so unjust," Krohn said. "The charges they came up with are absolutely ridiculous. Here is an officer who assisted in getting a union in there and has been terminated with no just cause."

If anything, Krohn said, this sort of practice highlights the need for a union in the Brooksville department. "We may have gotten in there at the expense of one of our officers," he said.

Working on both sides

Since taking over as police chief in September, Turner has said he would be willing to work with a union. Turner has worked on both sides of the negotiating table since starting his law enforcement career in New York in 1976.

Turner was a member of the union when he was a deputy police chief in Ulster, N.Y., and even filed a lawsuit against the city in 1999 after Ulster officials eliminated his position. He claimed the city cut him because he was involved with the union but a federal jury later voted unanimously to dismiss the case.

However, the police chief at the Longboat Key Police Department where Turner was formerly a captain, told Brooksville officials during a reference interview that Turner was "instrumental in helping to decertify our union," according to internal city documents.

Turner has said he didn't take an active role in disbanding Longboat Key's union and didn't join the union there because Florida unions don't get binding arbitration rights as they do in New York.

"I've had great relationships with unions ... we've always worked together," Turner said. "They want the same thing that I want for the officers."

Organizing a union in Brooksville has often been a contentious issue, as officers have accused former police Chief Ed Tincher of working to defeat their efforts over the years.

This time, Krohn said, he heard some officers were pressured by their supervisors to not get involved with the union.

"These smaller agencies, the bosses don't want us there because it limits their ability to do what they want when they want," Krohn said. "Then the political pressure comes from within to keep the officersfrom voting."

Regardless, Krohn said he will move toward contract negotiations with the city. He anticipates a combative start, given the way Lopez was dismissed. "I get the feeling it's going to be tough," Krohn said.

Meanwhile, Turner said he didn't expect any problems. "I'm looking forward to great working relationship," he said.

Joel Anderson can be reached at joelanderson@sptimes.com or 754-6120.

[Last modified January 4, 2008, 20:12:17]