The editors of the Wall Street Journal take note of a problem I mentioned early on:
Remember the furor in 2011 when Republican governors tried to reform collective bargaining for government workers? Well, what do you know, suddenly Democrats say public-union labor agreements are frustrating police reform. We’re delighted to hear it—if they’re serious.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday said police collective bargaining and arbitration have prevented the city from holding officers accountable for misconduct. Derek Chauvin, the officer charged with killing George Floyd, had at least 17 misconduct complaints against him in 18 years. His personnel file provides little detail about how these complaints were handled. But it appears he was disciplined only once—after a woman said he pulled her from a car and frisked her for exceeding the speed limit by 10 miles per hour. He received a letter of reprimand.
Minneapolis’s Office of Police Conduct Review has received 2,600 misconduct complaints since 2012. Only 12 have resulted in discipline, and the most severe punishment was a 40-hour suspension. “Unless we are willing to tackle the elephant in the room—which is the police union—there won’t be a culture shift in the department,†Mr. Frey said.
Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago officer convicted of murdering 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, had been the subject of 20 complaints—ranking in the top 4% of Chicago’s police department—including 10 that alleged excessive use of force.
A jury awarded a man $350,000 after finding Mr. Van Dyke employed excessive force during a traffic stop. Yet Mr. Van Dyke was never disciplined. A task force on police reform after the McDonald murder found that “collective bargaining agreements create unnecessary barriers to identifying and addressing police misconduct†and “essentially turned the code of silence into official policy.â€
It’s not just police officers’ unions that pose a problem although that police officers wield the power of life and death makes the problem particularly urgent. Teachers’ union rules make change difficult, prevent best practices from being rewarded, and ensure that the worst teachers will be rewarded right along with the best.
It’s been interesting following this debate among pro-union left-leaning places as they try to figure out how it might be possible to weaken the power of police unions without hurting unions generally.
I would recommend a combination of sophistry and cognitive dissonance. That’s always effective. They’re certainly being deployed in tandem by Gov. Pritzker and seem to be working for him.
They want the union political contributions without the unions. Sort of like the way it was during the classic period of big city machine politics. Lots of patronage jobs involving little work, and as long as you covered for your boss and helped out during elections and during rallies you were protected from firings and layoffs and reprimands. But you had to kick back part of your pay. Frank Hague of Jersey City implemented the scheme about as good as anybody.
“It’s not just police officers’ unions that pose a problem although that police officers wield the power of life and death makes the problem particularly urgent.”
All of the teachers unions who protect their teachers when they sit on student’s neck and kill them should also receive immediate attention. I think that everyone on the left would support that.
If a teacher abuses a student, and the union has it in their contract that the information must owe withheld if the teacher goes somewhere else to work, that should definitely be addressed.
When the police lose out on a contract they get blue flu and stop enforcing the law. If teachers are on the losing end of a contract so they stop teaching, that should definitely be addressed.
Otherwise there are some long term issues with teachers unions but there arent too many clear answers and they dont, for the most part, need immediate attention. Note that in states without teachers unions we dont clearly have better outcomes.
Steve