FOP Contract Demands

For decades, the Philadelphia Police Department has served as an occupying force meant to surveil, harass, displace, and incarcerate the Black and Latinx communities of Philadelphia. Instead of making our communities safer, the impact of the PPD has left our communities grieving. Many of the resources available to the PPD have been obtained because of the amount of power the Fraternal Order of Police has. The FOP gets most of its power by exploiting state-level legislation, but it's also powerful because of the political cowardice of our locally elected officials. For too long, the PPD has been able to negotiate for more resources and more limited disciplinary procedures, emboldening police officers to perpetuate violence in our communities and even within their ranks. The current FOP contract outlines forms of police violence that City leadership is willing to accept in the name of “public safety”. We say NO MORE. The existing contract was set to expire on June 30th; the Mayor decided to grant an extension through the end of the year instead of negotiating new contract terms, we can only speculate as to why.

Our ultimate goal is the abolition of police, prisons, and state surveillance; these demands are meant to reduce harm perpetrated by police and the FOP against Philadelphia’s Black and Brown communities. As we fight to defund and dismantle the PPD, we must create stronger processes for holding police accountable. We demand that the following changes be made to the City’s contract with the FOP:

Increased Transparency: In order to hold the police accountable, the people of Philadelphia must be able to obtain information about the relationship between the City and the PPD and about officer behavior, discipline, and compensation. The current contract impedes the ability of Philadelphians and civilian oversight bodies to obtain this information. Therefore, we need to see the following changes:

Transparency around the relationship between the City and the FOP
1. The City must make Collective Bargaining Agreements publicly available within 30 days of the agreement being executed.
2. The Police Advisory Commission, and any future oversight boards, must be notified of all substantive changes or new rules and regulations applicable to the Police Department affecting members of the FOP bargaining unit.
3. A number of labor-management committees advise the PPD on important policies and procedures. These committees and the Board that oversees them must be available to the public, including their selection process, identities, and work.
Transparency around officer behavior, discipline, and compensation
1. Individual and district level data on overtime compensation for court appearances must be publicly available.
2. Annual audits of the FOP accident and illness fund must be completed and be made available to the Police Advisory Commission, and all future oversight boards, and the general public within 30 days.
3. Arbitrator Lists and “chosen” arbitrators’ identities must be made available to the Police Advisory Commission and any future oversight boards.
4. All complaints against police must be made available to the Police Advisory Commission and any future oversight boards. The PPD must immediately make available any materials requested by the PAC for investigations into complaints against police and cooperate immediately and fully with any requests for interviews with officers.
5. All Disciplinary Records must be made available to the Police Advisory Commission and the general public within 72 hours of discipline being imposed, and should never be removed from an officer’s file under any circumstance.
6. All “Whistleblower” reports must be made available to the Police Oversight Commission within 72 hour of having been filed. Whistleblowers need not abide by Disciplinary Code 6-010-10.
7. All grievance and arbitration proceedings must be made available to the Police Advisory Commission, and any future oversight boards, within 72 hours of action.
8. An officer’s name and badge number must be made available to the public at all times and in all communications.
9. Announcements of disciplinary actions need to be made publicly and in roll call.

Swift and Strict Discipline: The system of discipline outlined in the Discipline Code calls for little to no consequences for severe offenses and allows disciplinary records to be erased after a short period of time. It fails to provide any meaningful accountability. It explicitly says that cops may not be fired for failing to report offers of bribes and committing felonies. Officers are punished more severely for abusing a fellow officer than they are for a civilian. For example, jeopardizing prisoner safety comes with a light penalty while speaking profanely to a senior officer carries the penalty of dismissal.
1. Creating a system of discipline that has real consequences.
  1. Add suspensions and demotions as a form of punishment for severe offenses.
  2. Stop allowing officers to use vacation time in lieu of suspension.
  3. Any officer that has been disciplined in the last two years is ineligible to use days from the Catastrophic Leave Bank.
  4. Remove language allowing Commissioner to suspend and waive discipline.
  5. Remove language that allows the use of City contributions to legal funds for suits against the City in criminal, tort and legal matters.
2. Officers must be immediately fired if they commit the following offenses:
  1. Failing to report offers of bribes.
  2. Use of excessive force.
  3. Failure to stop or attempt to stop an officer using excessive force.
  4. Abuse of authority.
  5. Sexual harassment, assault, and intimidation.
  6. Engaging in any action that constitutes the commission of a felony or misdemeanor with a sentence of 12 or more months.
  7. Failing to provide for safety of civilians in police custody.
  8. Display of any racist or white supremacist symbols (including tattoos), openly supporting white supremacist ideology, or knowingly associating with white supremacists, Neo Nazi, and other racist groups.
3. End discrimination on the basis of race and gender.
  1. Acts of discrimination against individuals or groups based on race, gender, or sexual orientation, including statements made in person and online, behavior, must be fireable offenses.
Divestment: The budget of the PPD is almost 15% of the budget for the City of Philadelphia. Police should not continue to receive disproportionate benefits compared to other city employees. We must:
1. Eliminate automatic annual raises.
2. Eliminate salary differentials. Each rank’s salary must be independently negotiated.
3. Eliminate the monthly service fee for non-FOP officers.
4. Reduce the city's contribution to their legal services fund by 50%.
5. Eliminate the $7/meal allowance for officers working overtime.
6. Reduce longevity pay to match what other city workers receive.
7. Eliminate the $1100/officer clothing allowance and require the FOP to cover clothing costs for new hires.
8. Eliminate the $250,000 in tuition reimbursement.
9. The FOP must assume all costs of arbitration.
10. The PPD must be broken up into multiple bargaining units so that agreements more appropriate to each unit may be negotiated; this year, officers at the rank of Lieutenant and above must negotiate as one bargaining unit and all ranks below Lieutenant must negotiate as another unit.
End the Use of Arbitration to Evade Discipline: Act 111 created an arbitration process that allows police officers to evade discipline on the local level. As we fight to repeal Act 111 at the state level, we demand that all complaints against police will be handled by the Police Advisory Commission and all future oversight boards. Decisions made by the PAC, and future oversight boards, will be binding.

These demands set us on a path towards better police accountability, but we also need effective community oversight. This fall, Philadelphians will vote on creation of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission. We must ensure that the new commission is more effective than the existing Police Advisory Commission; whatever replaces the PAC must:

Reflect the citizens of Philadelphia and be accountable directly to them
Be empowered to perform front-line investigations of officers, with the power to compel officer testimony, documentation, or other evidence as part of their investigations
Be fully funded, the total operating budget should be at least 1% of the police budget and be drawn directly from their budget.

Supporting Organizations:
Juntos
Abolitionist Law Center
Philly Power Research
Movement Alliance Project
Neighborhood Networks
Amistad Law Project
VietLead

Mass Liberation Task ForceSeptember 18, 2020Mass Liberation