Site Navigation

Police "Union" Gets Multimillion Dollar Contract
with Minimal Concessions
Two Years After Movement to Invest Funds Away from Cops,
City Intends to Hire 134 More

In early February, the City of Portland and the Portland Police Association (PPA) came to an agreement on a four year contract which brings a windfall to the roughly 800 line officers, Sergeants and Detectives of somewhere between $28 million and $56 million. Some progress was made in improving police accountability, but not enough to justify the payoff. The City's calculations for $5000 retention bonuses in 2022 and $2000 in 2024 show they expect there to be another 134 officers added to the fold in those two years, despite strong daily protests in 2020 which helped lead to redirection of police funds toward other services to keep the community safe. On the bright side, a cornerstone of the previous contract, the "retire/rehire program," led to just two of 81 eligible cops even expressing interest (Oregonian, January 26). The City set aside almost $500,000 in the fall to rehire recently retired cops.

The bonuses for 2022 are $4,770,000, which comes out to $5000 for 954 PPA members. The 2024 bonus of $2000 per cop comes to $2,176,000, which is for 1088 cops.

The process for renewing this contract began in late 2019 with community forums, followed by mixed public/private bargaining sessions truncated by the pandemic (PPRs #79-80). Sessions resumed in January 2021, pulled away from public view when the PPA demanded closed- door mediation, which ended any outside scrutiny (PPR #84). The text of the final contract was made available just two days before an unsatisfying Q&A session on February 10, hosted by the City Attorney and for-hire negotiator Steve Schuback. The overall gist of this session, and at the "first reading" to Council on February 17th, was that everyone did a great job and moved police reform forward.

Community members disagreed. PCW noted some language indicates the City can decide who will compel officers to testify for misconduct complaints, dropping the requirement for such interviews to take place in police buildings. However, the contract is still more vague than changes made to the City Charter in November 2020. To quote Oregonlive (February 17): "Some pointed out the city failed to eliminate a clause that says reprimand of an officer should be done in a way 'least likely to embarrass' that officer. Others complained the contract doesn't address police overtime costs, restrict officers' secondary jobs or require drug testing for officers after they use force."

It's telling the media used the term "complain" to describe a push for demands which were presented to Council prior to the 2020 negotiations. One slight change: the "embarrassment clause" now allows the City to update the public on the progress of investigations. A non-binding side note allows the City to express sympathy but not outrage, without revealing the discipline (with limited legal exceptions).

The section on drug testing adds "reasonable suspicion testing" to existing random tests. However, it's likely such testing already happens if an officer has bloodshot eyes/slurred words; the issue is whether using force/deadly force constitutes reasonable suspicion.

Meanwhile, the police can continue to get hired by corporations as private security, even though they claim to be stretched thin and supposedly everyone pays taxes and gets equal police protection.

Drawbacks also affected an issue expected to be an easy win: firing officers who engage in biased policing. After Sgt. Gregg Lewis made a violent, racist joke in 2017 and was given three weeks off without pay (after the City initially tried to fire him), even former PPA President Daryl Turner agreed the guide needs to be fixed. Yet the new "termination" section says such conduct has to be for a "misuse of police authority." Would Lewis have been fired for making that joke in front of officers he supervised? It's not clear. The revised "corrective action guide" (no longer called "discipline") allows the chief or the future police oversight board to make exceptions to the category which the City refers to as "automatic firings."

The PPA conceded to citywide expansion of the Portland Street Response (PSR) program, which teams firefighters and mental health specialists to respond to people in mental health crisis and houseless persons. However, they seem to still have a heavy stake in dictating what kind of calls PSR can take, and, because they also represent 911 operators, have four out of sixteen seats on a special committee being created to hash out details of the expanded program.

Other items not included by the City were removing the limitation on the current oversight board from investigating deadly force and the issue of body cameras. The key sticking point there was whether officers should be able to view the footage before writing reports (see the Body Camera article in this issue). The cameras are the subject of ongoing negotiations.

This contract is retroactive to July 2021 and locked in until June 2025. By then, most City Council members could be gone, the new oversight system will be in place, and institutional memory loss means the community may have to start again from scratch to push for justice.

May, 2022
Also in PPR #86

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

People's Police Report #86 Table of Contents
Back to Portland Copwatch home page
Peace and Justice Works home page
Back to top