Union’s top cop flames predecessor

Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Jim Konczos told The Hill
his goal is to have a renegotiated contract put to a vote by January.

In his first three months on the job, the new U.S. Capitol Police union chairman is promising more transparency while also taking a few shots at his predecessor.

{mosads}Konczos and his seven-member executive board are hoping that the new contract and change in style of leadership will boost union membership, which has lost more than 100 officers from an all-time high five years ago.

Matt Tighe, the former chairman, failed to get the contract approved in August after working on it for two years. Tighe said the vote failed because officers didn’t read the contract, instead relying on other officers for information.

At the heart of Konczos’s plan is making certain that members of the union board are all going to officer roll calls to keep the union’s 800 dues-paying officers abreast of their grievance-filing rights and the contract negotiation process. It’s a style Tighe did not employ and does not endorse, but that’s part of why the union’s numbers dwindled, Konczos said.

 “My goal is to go as far away from the way things have been done, because it wasn’t successful as far as the membership participation [was concerned], so our goal is to reach out as much as possible and get [union members] involved,” said Konczos after addressing a roll call for 10 minutes with another member of the board several weeks ago.

 “There was a lack of communication between the last board and the membership. So we just want to make sure they know we’re reaching out to them, and it helps if they can put a face to our names.”

 The 46-year-old Konczos has been a Capitol Police officer for 23 years and a member of the union for 10. Earlier this year he sat on Tighe’s executive board overseeing the grievance claims filed by officers, but he resigned because he said the union was disconnected from its membership’s wants.

 As evidence, Konczos points to the vote tally from a recently renegotiated contract put forward in August by Tighe, which had been in the works for more than two years: 277 voted against it; 15 voted for it.

 Tighe stands by the contract, which would have officially recognized the union chairmanship as a part-time position and thereby allowed him to be more accessible to membership. Tighe said the vote on the contract — held days before he left office — was a victim of rumors and gossip.

 “I think there was a lot of misinformation circulating amongst the officers, and unfortunately a lot of the officers didn’t take the time to read the contract themselves, they just listened to what a few [officers] had to say about it, and that swayed it,” said Tighe in an interview with The Hill in September.

 “And I’m not saying that someone can’t come in and do better, I just wish that people would have paid more attention and made up their minds themselves. I don’t think that happened. That’s democracy sometimes.”

 Tighe announced earlier this year that he wasn’t planning to run again for chairman. Instead, he said, he needed to spend more time with his family, because running a union amounted to a second full-time job.

 The workload only increased when Konczos took office in September and the union expanded its jurisdiction to include labor representation rights over the Library of Congress Police Department after it merged with the U.S. Capitol Police Department.

 In the nearly three months that Konczos has been head of the union, he said, it has already seen membership applications increase. Partly, he admits, that has to do with the recent merger, but he said it’s also probably due to new leadership and prospects for a new contract.

 Last month the new union had its first sit-down with the Capitol Police chief to restart contract negotiations, which it hopes to complete by early next year.

 “[Konczos] and I are working cooperatively together and meet routinely on issues of concern and on matters that move the department forward,” said Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse in an e-mail.

 “Union negotiations to achieve a new collective bargaining agreement are ongoing. We are meeting our agenda and the negotiating teams are having positive talks.”

 The chief agreed to go through Tighe’s version of the contract line by line and work out the details around what was acceptable and what needed to be changed, said Konczos.

 “Both sides have agreed that if we come to a sticking point in one article, we’re moving on to the next and then we’ll come back and hit the sore points,” Konczos said. “There’s not going to be any walking out on either side.”