Leadership Profile: IBPO Local 673 President Phil Grubb
Officer Phil Grubb, a 15-year veteran of the Chattanooga, Tennessee Police Department, is the president of IBPO Local 673, the only IBPO local that represents law enforcement officers from two different agencies, the CPD and the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department. He joined the IBPO as soon as the union came to Chattanooga some five years ago, and has been a local executive board member for four of those years. According to Grubb, the local has come a long way in a very short time.
"We work really closely with our local branch of the International Association of Firefighters, and their president and vice president said to me recently, 'You guys are now where we were four or five years ago,' and they've been around for maybe 15, 20 years," said Grubb. "They told me, 'In a few years, you've made progress that took us forever to make.'" Officers in both agencies, said Grubb, are now recognizing that other groups may say they represent officers, but that the IBPO actually gets things done for officers.
A big step in that progress was the recent campaign to reverse Mayor Ron Littlefield's decision to make officers pay a fee to take their police vehicles home or on outside detail work. Grubb and the national collaborated on a publicity campaign to win public support for fighting the proposal, complete with radio commercial and a local press conference with National President David J. Holway. With support from much of the Chattanooga city council, Grubb and the members of Local 673 won the reversal of the policy.
"We've been the first employee group at our department that's really stood up for officers," said Grubb. "There comes a point where somebody's got to stand up for you, and that's why I got involved. The union's not here to beat up on City Hall, but we're here to make sure that the officers have a voice, that we're being treated fairly. Nobody else has ever done that for us."
The Chattanooga-area native said that Local 673's hard work is already showing results. "The city council's already said that they want to give us a raise. I really believe that now, we're on the upswing to make things better."