Hundreds of officers in the Richmond Police Department are voting on whether to make the Richmond Coalition of Police their union bargaining agent, the Free Press has learned.

The balloting is to be completed on Monday, May 15, with the results released that day before the close of business at City Hall. The election is expected to show overwhelming support for RCOP to gain the authority to negotiate over pay and working conditions

on behalf of the more than 500 officers eligible to participate. The officers, up to the rank of lieutenant, appear to be the first to vote on approving a bargaining agent since City Council first authorized the more than 4,000 city employees to unionize.

The legislation which allows the unions was passed in late July 2022. It provides for five bargaining units, including one for police officers, one for Fire Department employees, one for professional workers, one for administrative and technical employees and another for labor and trades workers.

While three other organizations have filed for elections to represent one or more of those groups of employees, there has been no announcement or indication that they have moved forward with worker elections, based on their websites.

For example, Richmond Local 995 of the International Association of Fire Fighters’ Facebook page reports on recent fires and department responses, but there is no mention of a vote going on to select the local as the bargaining agent.

In February, two unions, the Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters, announced they had filed the paperwork for an election for various city employees, but there also is no mention of any balloting on their websites.

Based on a negotiated agreement, SEIU Virginia Local 512 is seeking to be the bargaining agent for two of the five groups, the professionals and the administrative and technical employees, while Teamsters Local 322 is seeking to represent the labor and trades workers, primarily with the departments of Public Works and Public Utilities.

Another union, Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), also filed to represent labor and trades workers, though it is not yet clear whether LIUNA filed sufficient signatures of current employees to be eligible to contest the Teamsters.