Senate President Pro Tempore Dave Sokola passed legislation that allowed police officers in the Town of Delmar to unionize – resolving a multi-layered jurisdictional dispute that had effectively blocked their ability to form a collective bargaining unit for decades.
Under the Delaware Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Employment Act first adopted in 1986, police officers in the First State have a right to form a union to collectively bargain with a municipality that employs 25 or more full-time workers.
Delmar, however, is actually two different towns – one in Delaware and one in Maryland. The mayor and town commissioners on the Maryland side passed a police department labor code in 2009 that set out the process for Delmar officers to unionize and collectively bargain but the mayor and town council on the Delaware side never followed suit.
The Delaware Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), a quasi-judicial agency charged with mediating public employee labor disputes in the First State, repeatedly determined it did not have the authority to certify a Delmar police officer union because the Delmar Police Department exists under a joint venture between one political entity in Delaware and a separate political entity in Maryland, which does not fall under its jurisdiction.
Passed unanimously by the Senate and the House, Senate Bill 181 (S) eliminated any doubt about whether the PERB could certify a Delmar police union by stating clearly in the Delaware Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Employment Relations Act that the Town of Delmar, Delaware, is a public employer.
