DRPA police sue, seeking binding arbitration

Police officers for the Delaware River Port Authority have filed suit against the DRPA, asking a federal court to order binding arbitration to settle their long-running contract dispute.

The 131 patrol officers, sergeants, and corporals have been working under terms of a contract that expired Dec. 31, 2009. Their duties include patrolling the PATCO commuter rail line and the DRPA's four toll bridges - the Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, Betsy Ross, and Commodore Barry.

The police lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Camden, said that the DRPA had refused to bargain in good faith and that it had offered a contract that included no wage increases and eliminated existing benefits such as certain paid holidays, uniform allowances, and injured-on-duty pay.

The police said DRPA representatives told them Gov. Christie would veto any pay increase for the police. Christie's office said Tuesday that it could not immediately confirm or refute that claim.

The suit asked the court to issue a mandatory injunction ordering the DRPA to engage in binding arbitration for a new contract. Typically, that involves each side selecting representatives to pick a neutral arbitrator to resolve the dispute.

The police - members of FOP Penn-Jersey Lodge 30 - have a long history of rocky labor relations with the DRPA.

Their last contract was approved in November 2008, almost four years after the previous pact expired. That contract required about 18 months of hearings before an arbitrator.

That arbitration resulted in raises of about 20 percent for patrol officers and about 8 percent for corporals and sergeants over five years, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2005.

Entry-level officers now earn $49,015 a year, and rank-and-file officers make $64,417. A DRPA police sergeant makes $80,181 a year.

The police lawsuit said DRPA in May 2010 made an offer of no wage increases for 2010 or 2011, with a $500 bonus in 2011 and a 2 percent wage increase for 2012.

The union rejected that offer and proposed in June 2011 a four-year contract with 2 percent increases in each year, the suit said.

The DRPA's most recent offer, Feb. 6, was for no wage increases and elimination of some benefits, the suit said.

"Lodge 30 and the DRPA are, if anything, going backward in their negotiations, and have been at impasse in collective negotiations since at least Feb. 6, 2012," the suit said.

DRPA spokesman Tim Ireland said: "We don't discuss ongoing labor negotiations."