City Posts Notice It Broke Law
Document Acknowledges That City Violated State Bargaining Laws

“What’s happening is what he [the city] said would happen — they’re recouping the money one way or another.”

Publicly posted notice in Coral Gables Police Station that city broke law and in the future “will not refuse and fail to bargain” with the F.O.P. Photo by Cynthia Archbold.

By Cynthia Archbold

Leaders of a police union feel vindicated that a state labor agency has ordered the city of Coral Gables to publicly notice that it broke the law when it refused to bargain during contract negotiations.

But police are frustrated that they do not have a contract and say they are ready to hit the streets to express their frustration with fighting City Hall since September 2005.

The notice to employees is plastered right smack in front of the information window in the police station, and is a result of a lawsuit filed by the Fraternal Order of Police against the city of Coral Gables.

The notice states: “After a hearing in which all parties had an opportunity to present evidence, the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) has determined that we have violated the law and has ordered us to post this notice. We will not refuse and fail to bargain with the Coral Gables… Fraternal Order of Police... We will not… interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of any rights guaranteed them under … Florida Statutes…”

The notice, which is to be posted for 60 days, also says the city will notify PERC in writing within 20 days of the steps taken to comply with the order.

Representatives from the city attorney’s office did not return phone calls from the SunPost by deadline.

Yet Eugene Gibbons, president of the Coral Gables chapter of the FOP, says the city has not come close to offering a contract that police find acceptable.

Gibbons believes city leaders are punishing police for refusing to take salary cuts to contribute to the pension fund. Police are the only city employees not paying 5 percent to help defray the escalating costs of the retirement benefit.

While other city employees are getting 3 percent raises this year, Gibbons says police are being presented with zilch. “The city offered us a very generous no raise for last year and no raise for this coming year,” Gibbons says.

City Manager David Brown predicted this would happen, saying more than a year ago that city commissioners wanted police to chip into the pension fund, and if they wouldn’t the money would come out of future raises.

Gibbons says the dispute started when police gave up about $5,000 each from their paychecks over a period of 22 months — 5 percent of their gross salaries — to put money into the pension fund. In exchange, city administrators promised to increase the cost of living adjustment officers would receive later in their retirement benefits.

However, soon after, the city discovered it would be cost prohibitive to improve COLA benefits as planned. Gibbons says the union understood the problem, and asked the city to reimburse officers $5,000 to $6,000 that had been withheld from their paychecks.

But the city dragged its feet. The FOP declared war. Newspaper ads in the Coral Gables Gazette proclaimed a vote of no confidence in City Manager David Brown, and featured a distorted mug shot of him.

Finally, Brown met with Gibbons at a Starbucks in early 2006, purportedly to hand over the reimbursement checks. Instead, Brown warned the union leader: “There will be war.” Brown told Gibbons the mayor and city commissioners would instruct him to withhold police pay raises for three years.

Police finally got their pension money back last February, but not before the union filed a lawsuit through the Public Employees Relations Commission charging that Brown threatened police.

Today Gibbons says the refusal to grant pay increases is retaliation for police officers demanding to be repaid their 5 percent pension fund contribution: “What’s happening is what he [Brown] said would happen — they’re recouping the money one way or another.”

Still, Gibbons says he is surprised by the commission’s stance. “I’ve had contact with several of the commissioners, and I thought the city was going to change their position as far as they treat my union. It’s obvious that either they never sent that message or it wasn’t heard.”

After a City Commission executive session on Monday, Gibbons may find out the commission’s true feelings about how much city police should be compensated.

They are among the highest paid in South Florida, and after the commission meets with city management and the contract negotiation team, the police union should receive a contract offer that reflects the updated opinions of elected officials, who are well aware of the threat of a police protest.

However, since 2003, commissioners have urged Brown to get the pension fund under control, by persuading all 854 employees to contribute part of their salaries to it.

Meanwhile, by law, police cannot protest their employment contract by refusing to work.

As far as the union’s threats to take to the streets, Mayor Don Slesnick says, “Of course it’s painful. It is always painful to have disagreements.

“They certainly have the right to demonstrate how they feel,” Slesnick adds in an interview with the SunPost prior to the public posting of the notice. But he wonders if a pay raise demonstration could backfire for the police union. “Do you think if I picketed City Hall to ask for a 3 percent tax increase it would draw a big crowd?”