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368 29 Hans Marticiuc and Greater Benefits F or fifteen years, Houston’s police employee groups stepped up the ageold fight to get better salaries and benefits at a feverish pace by lobbying sympathetic legislators for laws that provided officers with significant bargaining rights with the city. Their most ardent adversary was Kathy Whitmire , the mayor with a perceived disdain for police who fought them bitterly over every money issue. More than a decade and a half after Whitmire left office, older officers remembered the salary cut she instituted. She got City Council to approve a three percent pay raise, only to rescind it a short time later because of faltering economic conditions. Street officers did the math. A three percent raise for someone who earned $30,000 meant an annual raise of $900 to a new $30,900 level. However, when rescinded, the three percent was subtracted from the adjusted salary and resulted in a net loss of $27. Twenty-seven bucks might not seem like much. But it was a net loss and slap in the face. By the early 1990s, the Houston Police Officers Association and the Houston Police Patrolmen’s Union strategized in their own different styles to fight the legislative battles designed to improve the woeful salary and benefit conditions . By and large, leaders in both organizations reached the same conclusion —police employee groups would continue to go nowhere unless they merged into one united group vocal about local bargaining rights for officers . While the HPOA committed to embark on the merger course, HPPU’s Board of Directors always had problems with acceptance of HPOA in what amounted to a full partnership. HPPU never fully accepted Meet and Confer, a position attributed to the selfishness of new leaders and hired staff who felt a merger would effectively end their work with the union. By the mid-1980s, the two groups ran neck-and-neck in membership. HPPU had an upper hand for several years and gained more members. But Hans Marticiuc and Greater Benefits 369 by the mid-1990s, effective leaders such as Bob Thomas and Tommy Britt no longer prevailed as the most influential force in the patrol-oriented organization . Thomas retired as a patrol sergeant. Both he and Britt realized that the Meet and Confer measure passed in the Legislature called for the city of Houston to meet with what was known as the “Majority Bargaining Agent”. An MBA represented the most police officers and acted as the sole agent for all officers. If HPOA and HPPU kept fighting, their actions would preclude establishment of an MBA. The first of two merger attempts took place in the early 1990s with both organizations selecting their representatives, Johnie Vollert for HPOA and Ed Lascano for HPPU. The two groups jointly hired noted the Houston law firm of Bracewell Patterson to oversee the process in order for all officers to legitimately believe that every move was open and fair. In 1995, leaders from both groups discussed a merger to no avail. Some leaders and employees of HPPU were steadfastly against it. They felt if officers voted independently to choose a bargaining agent, they would likely be on the losing end. The association itself, with headquarters two blocks from Police Headquarters, had its own problems with in-fighting and lack of aggressiveness. It paid for a study, released on June 7, 1996, that showed officers with seventeen years of experience were being paid eight percent less than comparable officers in other major Texas cities. Overall, Houston ranked 210th in the salary comparisons of U.S. police departments in cities with at least 50,000 populations.1 Officer Mark Clark learned the ins and outs of the Legislature while serving six years (1985–1991) as HPOA president. His efforts in Austin in 1985 resulted in the passage of some major police labor milestones for HPD officers . Clark, in concern with Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Lester Tyra and HPPU President Tommy Britt, negotiated legislation that was passed into law. This new law created binding arbitration for officers and firefighters in administrative discipline cases that would be heard by independent examiners rather than mayoral appointees. These labor leaders also led the passage of the first ever grievance procedure for HPD officers and the state’s first ever bill of rights for police officers. The ability of HPD officers to have administrative discipline appeals heard by an independent third-party hearing examiner became a game-changer that was on...

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