By Jennifer Gomori, POJ Editor

Fenton Patrol Officers had a long history of career members in their Local Union, but in recent years when younger officers joined the ranks they noticed labor issues were not being addressed.

Represented by the Police Officers Association of Michigan (POAM) for as long as they could remember, former Local Union Board members and their POAM Representative had more of a laissez-faire attitude about raising concerns with the Employer, said Susie Haney, who was a Local Union Steward for Fenton Patrol until her recent promotion. “I can see (POAM) contracts as far back as the early 1990s and I’m assuming it was far before that,” Haney said. “Our department had a history of officers starting and ending their careers here. When we were getting younger officers transferring in from other departments, they started asking, ‘When are we meeting?’ and we raised some concerns. People would bring grievances and (former Local Union Board members) would say ‘No, we don’t do that.’ They were biding their time for retirement. When we started getting laterals in, people started raising eyebrows.”

The lateral hires were a wake-up call for existing Employees, some of whom lacked prior Union experience. “I didn’t come from a Union background family, so I didn’t know any different. I was just frustrated,” Haney said. “There was no Union representation. There were never any meetings. It just wasn’t active at all.”

After enough older members retired, the group sought new representation, voting unanimously in favor of joining the Police Officers Labor Council (POLC) in the spring of 2025. The 16-member group reached out to the POLC after hearing favorable things about their service from White Lake Command Officers, who are POLC members. “Someone they knew there had been at a couple different departments that had switched to POLC,” she said.

The Dispatchers in the group were feeling completely disregarded by their POAM Labor Rep., said Haney, a former Fenton Dispatcher who served on Patrol’s bargaining team. Now, she’s a Fenton Dispatch Supervisor and Records Coordinator. “That was shortly before we switched (to POLC) when I finally had questions. I said ‘Hey, Dispatch needs to be brought up. We need a $3 an hour raise.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to do that because Dispatch would make more than a first-year officer. Why would we do that?’” 

“It took the officers saying we want them to make a higher wage,” however, she said, their POAM Representative still didn’t listen. “He was just flabbergasted. He said, ‘You’re holding up other contracts. We’re rubber-stamping it.’ Honestly, that was the expectation.”

During contract negotiations, their POAM Representative kept silent and had the Local Union Steward do all the talking, Haney said. “We were not getting far because they didn’t speak in our room,” she said. “We had a police officer going against City attorneys, and they didn’t know any better. I asked ‘Are you going to speak in negotiations?' Because our officers don’t do well speaking for themselves. we were kind of always outmatched. I said, ‘I don’t know what we’re paying dues here for guys.’” 

Since the City was used to compliance without questions, Fenton Patrol’s new POLC Labor Representative Christopher Hild had some work ahead of him, Haney said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. No one has ever challenged (the City Attorney). She’s been there for so long and gotten used to POAM doing what she wants, when she wants, on her timeline,” Haney said. “Within 5 minutes of negotiations with POLC, she was already bent out of shape. That’s because POAM didn’t speak — nobody challenged her. I think having the POLC come in, at least for the City Manager, it was like, ‘Okay, things are kind of changing.’ People are not just going with the flow anymore.”

The POLC didn’t back down, bargaining until they reached a contract beneficial for all members. Their new four-year agreement is retroactive to July 1, 2024 since the group was nearly a year past their contract expiration when they joined the Union. The gains were worth the wait, with Fenton Patrol Officers and Dispatchers receiving 15 percent in wage increases. Employees received 4 percent pay bumps the first two years, effective July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025, followed by 3.5 percent increases effective July 1, 2026, and again on July 1, 2027.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Juneteenth were added as paid Holidays in exchange for removal of the Employee’s Birthday as a Holiday.

Once a tight-knit department, the past lack of labor representation combined with several retirements ushered in a new reality. “They’re not loyal to each other within the walls (of the department). We were all so loyal to each other that we wouldn’t leave — we were more like a family,” Haney said. “That whole thing is gone. You have so many young ones now. If you have nothing to offer them, there’s not an incentive to stay.”

The POLC’s helpful response to member concerns has been a long-awaited relief for Fenton Patrol. “It’s a breath of fresh air knowing the fact that you can speak to (Hild). If I sent any email to POAM before, they would never answer me and call the (Local) Union President and say, ‘Tell people not to contact me.’”

Having the POLC by their sides in negotiations, the bargaining team no longer felt outgunned, being forced to challenge city attorneys without Union assistance. “Chris weighed in and started speaking right away. He was educated, he had his facts, and he was detail-oriented,” she said. “It was just a completely different and positive experience. We couldn’t even find any bylaws. He had sent me an email recently saying, ‘Here’s some sample ones. I would suggest filing these.’”

Hild thoroughly reviewed their prior contract and noted items that needed to be addressed, like previously not including Dispatchers in sections that applied to them. “Chris said, ‘I noticed all of this needs to be done. Let’s just handle it. If we’re redoing this contract, let’s redo it.’ That was nice having somebody go line-by-line, making them fix what they were supposed to fix so (members) were covered.” 

Gone are the days of ambiguity and literally not having their votes count. Haney recalled a time when she voted absentee at a Local Union meeting she was unable to attend, but her vote was not counted. “If we had a vote, and if the person running the meeting felt that counting absentee votes was not in favor of him, he didn’t count those,” she said.

“It’s been a positive experience overall,” Haney said of switching to the POLC. “I don’t have any negatives with it. From the representation in the room to the communication, he is proactive.”