Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)

ESTABLISHED: 1915
EMPLOYEES: 18 (1997)
MEMBERS: 277,000

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: 1410 Donelson Pike, A-17 Nashville, TN 37217
PHONE: (615) 399-0900
TOLL FREE: (800) 451-2711
FAX: (615) 399-0400
E-MAIL: glfop@grandlodgefop.org
URL: http://www.grandlodgefop.org
NATIONAL PRESIDENT: Gilbert Gallegos

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is a labor union that bills itself as "the world's largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers." According to the organization's Web site, it is "committed to improving the working conditions of law enforcement officers and the safety of those who serve through education, legislation, information, community involvement and employee representation."

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The FOP's day-to-day affairs are administered by a 15-person staff at the organization's national headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. Daily operations are supervised by the national secretary, who is one of a seven-member executive board that oversees all FOP operations. The executive board is elected by FOP membership at the group's biennial conference. Overall FOP policy is set by its board of directors. The board of directors, which consists of the Executive Board, past presidents of the FOP, and a trustee from each state lodge, meets twice yearly.

Members of the FOP belong to local lodges, which cover cities or regions. The more than 2,000 FOP local lodges are organized into 42 state lodges, each of which has a voice on the FOP's board of directors. The FOP also has two affiliated organizations. The Auxiliary Group is a support organization for the wives and adult family of FOP members. The Fraternal Order of Police Associates is open to membership by anyone in the general public who wishes to support the FOP and law enforcement officers.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

As a labor union, the primary function of the FOP is to win the best possible wages and benefits for its members from their employers. For the most part, FOP negotiations take place at the local level. The FOP also works to organize new collective bargaining units, thereby increasing its membership and overall effectiveness. For instance, in 1997 the FOP successfully organized the 720-member Capitol Hill police force.

The FOP also seeks to influence legislation and public opinion about issues of concern for its members, and police in general. Through its Washington D.C., office, the FOP lobbies Congress for legislation that supports issues such as firearms laws. On occasion, the FOP challenges laws in court that it considers unjust. Through public education efforts, the FOP encourages the general public to support their local law enforcement.

PROGRAMS

FOP programs are designed primarily to provide special services and benefits to members of the union. For example, the FOP Legal Defense Plan makes special liability insurance coverage available to FOP members at an affordable price. The plan includes coverage that will assist an officer in paying legal fees if he or she is the subject of a lawsuit or administrative action. Liability insurance for special events such as concerts, dances, conventions, or other large gatherings where police officers might be hired to handle security in their off duty hours, is also available. The FOP also maintains educational and professional development seminars for its members, which help them stay at the top of their profession.

On May 15th of each year is National Peace Officers' Memorial Day. On this day, people around the country join in remembering police officers who have died in the line of duty. The FOP and FOP Auxiliary sponsor an Annual Memorial Service every May 15th, when the family and comrades of officers who lost their lives gather on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

BUDGET INFORMATION

Not made available.

HISTORY

The FOP was created in 1915, during a time when "the life of a policeman was bleak," according to FOP literature. Officers were called on to work extremely long hours, and had few official outlets for complaint. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, two patrol officers, Martin Toole and Delbert Nagle, decided to organize their fellow officers. They and 21 other officers seeking better working conditions met on May 14, 1915 to form an organization. William H. Larkin was the first president. Initially known as the United States Association of Police, within a year the group had adopted as its name the Fraternal Order of Police.

Bowing to the anti-union sentiment of the time, the FOP's constitution declared that it was not a labor union, and denounced the use of strikes by police officers. They called the units lodges rather than locals, the first was named Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1. The group's union-like aims were quickly apparent, however. Members went to Pittsburgh Mayor Joe Armstrong and announced their intention to bring their concerns over hours and pay before the city council.

By 1917 the FOP had grown to approximately 1,800 members. Under the leadership of Delbert Nagel, the FOP began to expand into a national organization. Its first national convention was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1917, and in 1918 it began to publish the FOP Journal. The FOP began to quickly expand across the country, and police officers agitated, but did not strike, for higher pay and better working conditions. The organization was popular in the many areas where formal labor unions for police were illegal. The FOP's denunciation of the 1919 Boston police strike, and support of Governor Calvin Coolidge's use of state militia and firing of the officers who had gone on strike, gained the FOP national attention and the approval of the general public.

The 1920s saw significant gains for police officers in pay and benefits, including the enactment of an eight-hour workday law in Pennsylvania. The FOP supported efforts to arrest and deport seditious aliens during the so-called Red Scare, and pushed for federal handgun control laws. In the 1930s the main concern of the FOP, as it was for everyone, was the Great Depression. The FOP's efforts to maintain police officer's wages were largely unsuccessful, as were their protests against the extension of federal income taxes to include state and municipal employees by the Revenue Act of 1936.

Another concern of the FOP that developed during this period and continues to this day is the portrayal of police in the media. The FOP routinely protested against movies that glorified criminals while depicting police officers as brutal and inept. In the 1950s, its protests against NBC's teleplay A Long Way Home led the program's sponsor to withdraw its support. On the other hand, the organization approved of the television program Dragnet, and awarded its producer a special plaque for positively portraying police officers.

The late 1950s and 1960s saw police routinely involved in breaking up civil rights and anti-war demonstrations. Increasingly, such activities led to negative publicity for police officers, and the FOP defended officers against many charges of police brutality. The FOP also worked to defend its members from investigations by internal review boards, which were becoming increasingly common across the United States. The FOP maintained then and now that review boards are often unfair and unjustly deprive officers of the right to a fair hearing. The FOP protested against the U.S. Supreme Court's 1966 Miranda decision. This was the ruling which held that police officers must inform a suspect of their rights when they are arrested. The FOP felt that the Miranda decision placed undue restrictions on police officers and would only serve to hinder efforts to catch criminals.

In 1965 the FOP was an important supporter of federal legislation which led to the enactment of a federal survivorship benefit for the family of officers killed enforcing a federal law. Continued lobbying by the FOP led to the enactment of the 1976 Public Safety Officers Benefit Act, which paid $50,000 to the survivors of an officer who died while enforcing any law.

In 1982 the FOP Auxiliary and the FOP began to observe National Peace Officers' Memorial Day with a service at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Although May 15th was designed as National Peace Officers' Memorial Day by President Kennedy in 1962, this was the first major service dedicated to fallen law enforcement officers.

In the 1980s and 1990s, enactment of a "Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights" was a priority for the FOP. The rights that the FOP seeks are mostly protection for law enforcement officers under review by their own agencies, and include such concerns as the right to be informed of any investigations into their past activities, and the right to legal counsel at administrative hearings. The FOP's efforts have so far been unsuccessful. The FOP has also pushed for the enactment of laws that would allow public safety employees (police officers and firefighters) to join formal unions and bargain collectively for wages and benefits.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

The FOP supports legislation that helps law enforcement and labor unions including proposals to increase gun control measures and to protect and expand collective bargaining and organizing rights. Conversely, the organization fights legislation that it perceives would hurt the mission of police or organized labor.

For example, in the 1990s the FOP was among the groups that successfully opposed the various bills, usually referred to as the National Right to Work Act, that would have weakened labor unions by making it illegal to require members to pay dues. In 1998 the FOP succeeded in winning passage of a federal law that exempted law enforcement offices from following state and local laws that prohibited the carrying of a concealed weapons. The FOP's efforts to organize law enforcement officers can also lead to political controversy. In the late 1990s the FOP was critical of the Clinton administration for not allowing their union to organize the Secret Service.

Case Study: The Lautenberg Law

In the closing days of the 104th Congress in 1996, a bill called the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban was passed, over the protests of the FOP. This bill, often called the Lautenberg law, after its author, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), prohibited anyone who had ever been convicted of or pled guilty to a domestic violence charge, including a misdemeanor, from owning or carrying a gun.

The FOP began campaigning for changes to the Lautenberg law as soon as it was passed. The reason for the FOP's urgency was that, in a departure from other federal gun ban laws, the Lautenberg did not exclude law officers from the ban. Even worse, in the FOP's eyes, was the fact that the law applied to any domestic violence convictions, even those decades in the past. These two facts combined to mean that police officers with years of distinguished service but also with a domestic violence offense in their past, could lose their jobs because the Lautenberg law prevents them from carrying a weapon.

The FOP believes that such firings are unnecessary and unjust, but many supporters believe that the law should apply to everyone, including law officers, and regardless of when the crime was committed. Supporters of the law feel that domestic violence is a serious problem, and that preventing offenders from carrying a gun is a preventive measure. The FOP agrees that domestic violence is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. The organization points out that police officers are frequently called in to deal with domestic violence, and thus they are well aware of the potential danger. The FOP claims that officers are much more likely to be attacked during a domestic violence call than, for example, during an arrest.

The main objection the FOP has to the Lautenberg law is not that it applies to police officers, but that it covers crimes committed long before the law was ever passed. As a representative of the people who must enforce this law, the FOP feels that it places an impossible burden on the police. Because there was no national effort to track domestic violence offenses before the Lautenberg law, it is nearly impossible to identify past offenders. Therefore, few industries actually enforce the background check. Indeed, the FOP asserts that the only place where the backgrounds of potential gun carriers are being checked are law enforcement agencies.

The FOP has pursued changes to the Lautenberg law on several fronts. They have supported bills introduced by Representative Bob Barr (R-Georg.) that would make the Lautenberg law apply only to domestic violence crimes committed after the law was enacted. There has been opposition, however, from those who feel that no one who as committed an act of domestic violence should be employed by a police agency anyway. The FOP agrees that no police department would ever knowingly employ a domestic abuser. Another obstacle to passage of Representative Barr's bill has been the presence of other proposals, including some that would repeal the Lautenberg law outright, or cause it to no longer apply to law enforcement officers. The FOP does not endorse these bills, as they feel that the ban for domestic abusers is a good idea in principle, even when applied to law enforcement officers.

To address the urgent concern of police officers being fired from their jobs, the FOP also challenged the Lautenberg law in court. This effort has met with mixed results. While their initial case was thrown out of court, an appeal led to a verdict that sections of the Lautenberg law that could cost law officers their jobs were unconstitutional. The government then appealed the case, and in April of 1999 the verdict was reversed again, with the Lautenberg law being found fully constitutional. The FOP has vowed to appeal this verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

While the late 1990s saw a nationwide drop in crime, there are many trends which the FOP finds troubling. The FOP is disturbed by the trend toward more violent acts by younger and younger teens and even children, as well as the spread of lethal technology such as armor-piercing bullets and guns that can evade X-ray devices. The FOP plans to push for new legislation that addresses these issues. Some of the ideas that FOP hopes to see implemented include a ban on ammunition capable of piercing body armor, higher penalties for criminals who use firearms equipped with laser sights, and tougher penalties for juvenile criminals.

GROUP RESOURCES

The FOP maintains a Web site at http://www.grandlodgefop.org, with information for the public about the organization and its concerns. Available information includes details on the group's officers and major activities, links to lodges and affiliated groups, and updates on laws, lawsuits, and legislation that are important to the FOP.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The FOP has a periodical publication, National F.O.P. Journal, that discusses the organization's activities, and issues of concern to the law enforcement field. The magazine is free for members and $10 per year for nonmembers. For information, contact the FOP by mail at FOP Grand Lodge, 1410 Donelson Pike, A-17, Nashville, TN 37217, or call (615) 399-0900.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bridger, Chet. "Police Want Arrest Rights." Federal Times, 31 March 1997.

Church, George J. "The Ad Wars Turn Nasty." Time, 30 September 1996.

Clinton, Bill. "Teleconference Remarks to the Fraternal Order of Police." Weekly Compilation of President Documents, 7 August 1995.

Daniel, Lisa. "Capitol Hill Police Elect First Union." Federal Times, 30 June 1997.

"Fight for the Light." The Nation, 26 June 1995.

"Fond Memorial." Billboard, 7 June 1997.

Howard, Theresa. "Calling All Cops: Let LJ's Campaign Drive Full Speed Ahead." Nation's Restaurant News, 13 October 1997.

Rivenbark, Leigh. "Police Balk at Gun Law." Federal Times, 10 February 1997.

Rivenbark, Leigh. "Secret Service: Cops or Not?" Federal Times, 27 May 1996.

Winters, Paul. Policing the Police. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1995.