Fraternal Order of Police
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The Fraternal Order of Police is a fraternal organization for sworn police officers. It is the largest professional law enforcement association in the United States, with some 2100 local chapters, or lodges, and an estimated 310,000 members.
Martin Toole and Delbert Nagle, two Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania patrol officers, founded the first lodge on May 14, 1915 to improve life and working conditions for police. In the beginning the organization was promoted for its social benefits, but in many areas it also represents police as a collective bargaining agent, in effect making it a labor union.
The Grand Lodge, the national umbrella organization, is based in Nashville, Tennessee. It publicizes the activities and issues of the local lodges, lobbies Congress and regulatory bodies on behalf of police interests, and offers resources such as legal briefs and bargaining tips. It also sponsors various charities, memorials for fallen officers, and support programs for spouses and family members of police officers.
FOP as a collective bargaining agent
The formation of the first FOP lodges allowed officers to socialize with their fellows outside of their stressful work environment. In many areas the lodge building served as a private club little different from such organizations as the Loyal Order of Moose.
As more jurisdictions began to allow their police officers collective bargaining rights, the social orientation of the FOP shifted. In some jurisdictions, officers voted for the FOP to be recognized as their collective bargaining agent, making the lodge in effect the local of a union within that jurisdiction. This caused a change of priorities from largely social and fraternal concerns to issues of benefits, pay, and grievance representation, among others.
Critics have argued the FOP is ill-suited to serve in such a capacity. For one thing, it has traditionally been open to all ranks of sworn police officers, while labor unions by their nature are not open to members of management. For another, it is argued that collective bargaining is too far removed from the original purpose of the organization. A further concern is that in many jurisdictions the FOP has been traditionally viewed as primarily for white officers, problematic in this era of increasing diversity as well as racial controversies involving law enforcement.
For these reasons, in some jurisdictions the FOP has been decertified as a collective bargaining agent, although it may continue to exist in its original social and fraternal functions. In others, it has been retained as the collective bargaining agent despite efforts to have it removed. The group traditionally fights vigorously any effort to remove it as a collective agent in jurisidictions in which it has been certified as such, as most such groups can be expected to do.