Dharmapala, McAdams, and Rappaport Cited on the Relationship Between Unions and Police Accountability

Union clout is one reason holding cops accountable is tough

“[C]itizens have elected public officials to make these important policy decisions,” says the brief for the league and the police chiefs, “and this Court should not allow arbitrators to substitute their judgment …”

Yet as I’ve argued here a few times before, arbitrators regularly do just that — though of course they uphold discipline, including termination, in other cases. But given the stakes involved in ensuring that only the most exceptionally able and self-possessed officers patrol our streets, given the level of public concern surrounding police misconduct, it’s possible to question whether the disciplinary system as currently structured gives those in charge of supervising police the authority they need.

All that said, Richfield’s suit remains a long shot. Minnesota courts have a long history of treating labor arbitration decisions as virtually inviolate. If the Appeals Court continues that tradition, reforming disciplinary processes will remain up to policymakers, including those who negotiate union contracts.

All concerned with these matters may want to consider an unusual new piece of research from scholars at the University of Chicago Law School. In “The Effect of Collective Bargaining Rights on Law Enforcement: Evidence from Florida,” Richard McAdams, John Rappaport and Dhammikka Dharmapala studied what happened after a 2003 Florida Supreme Court ruling in effect unionized a group of law enforcement agencies that had previously been nonunion.

Simply put, they found that the level of misconduct complaints rose substantially (by 27 percent) in the newly unionized agencies, a result they attribute in significant part to the various protections against discipline that collective bargaining provides, including arbitration rights.

Read more at Star Tribune

Policing