A federal report released last week laid out the steps Seattle must take to convince the US Department of Justice to stop babysitting the Seattle Police Department as it has for the last 12 years, a goal shared by abolitionists, reformers, and local elected officials alike.
Those steps include (among other things) giving SPD more money to implement reforms and better defining the roles of the local oversight agencies, all of which the City can do on its own. But the report also listed police accountability policies, such as giving civilians more power over police misconduct investigations, removing rules that impose strict timelines on those investigations, and no longer allowing private arbitration attorneys to overturn the chief of police’s disciplinary decisions. Those reforms sound fun, but to enact them the City will need to beat the recalcitrant police union at the bargaining table in its negotiations over the Seattle Police Officers Guild’s (SPOG) contract, which expired in 2020.
In the report, the federal monitor gave credence to the view that the City could more easily and permanently implement those reforms if the Legislature banned collective bargaining on issues of police accountability. But legislators and labor attorneys disagreed, saying the City just needs to take a harder line with SPOG.
Everyone in Seattle wants the Feds to go away because the oversight program, which bears the eye-glazing name of “consent decree,” has cost the City hundreds of millions of dollars and yet its reforms haven’t met community expectations. Last year, the City once again tried to convince US Federal Judge James Robart to lift the consent decree, but Robart said he would wait until after the City finalized the new SPOG contract and after the monitor released his accountability system assessment. If the new SPOG contract doesn’t bring the department into compliance with the consent decree, then the City could face another four years with a federal babysitter.
Harrell’s spokesperson, Jamie Housen, said the City cannot unilaterally make the changes listed in the monitor’s report because labor negotiations require compromise, which is why a state law could help them make some big changes quickly.
Labor negotiations happen behind closed doors, so we can’t know what SPOG wants in exchange for police accountability reforms. We do know what the City said it planned to push for as of March 2023, when a City labor negotiator outlined priorities, all of which aligned with the goal of coming into compliance with the consent decree. Those priorities included nixing arbitrary investigation timelines, securing unlimited subpoena power for police misconduct investigators, reducing the high level of proof needed to discipline a cop, and making the appeals and arbitration process more transparent. Given the projected budget deficit for next year, the City might struggle to find the money to buy a carrot big enough to entice SPOG to accept these accountability measures, especially given how much the union fought these ideas in the past.
If the two sides dig in and reach an impasse, the whole contract could go to “interest arbitration,” which could result in a contract with even worse accountability measures. As police observer Amy Sundberg pointed out in an article for the Urbanist, some signs indicate that interest arbitration could go in the City’s favor, especially since the Seattle Police Management Association (cop bosses) already accepted some of these police accountability reforms. However, between the risky unknown consequences of interest arbitration and a surefire state law that would give cities total power over enacting police accountability measures, it makes sense that the City prefers to push for a state law.
That said, Seattle’s current elected officials might not be putting enough pressure on SPOG. At the end of last year, the City agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding with SPOG that increased police funding without requiring any police accountability measures in return. Plus, Council Member Bob Kettle, the new chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, told FOX 13 that he wants to boost officer morale, and he asked officers thinking about retiring or quitting to give the Council one year to woo them back. Not exactly the picture of someone who wants to play hardball in labor negotiations.
But state lawmakers also want to avoid taking a political hit from both labor unions and cops. The Legislature tried to ban police unions from bargaining over police accountability in 2021 and in 2022 with Senate Bill 5134, introduced by Senator Jesse Salomon. But the bill never left the Senate labor committee due to substantial opposition from powerful labor unions, including the Teamsters, who represent the UW Police Department. Salomon said he planned to reintroduce his bill this year.
State Senator Karen Keiser (D-Des Moines), who chairs the labor committee, called the issue a “slippery slope” in regards to stifling labor power. She bristled at the idea of singling out police unions as different from other workers, saying, “solidarity forever.” (Keiser’s point falls flat when you consider that, unlike any other worker, cops have the exclusive power to kill and imprison people, and not putting close guardrails on that power is also a kind of “slippery slope.”) In any event, instead of sliding down her non-existent slippery slope, she argued that Seattle officials could benefit from taking a few classes on “how to do real bargaining.”
While I think the City should risk taking the SPOG contract to interest arbitration if the union continues to oppose police accountability, which they will, it’s pretty convenient for state lawmakers to pass the buck. As the federal monitor pointed out in his report, even if the City managed to insert all the accountability measures outlined by the federal monitor into the SPOG contract, that contract would only last four years. If Judge Robart then lifted federal oversight, a different mayor could trade away all of those police accountability measures from the next round of collective bargaining. A new state law, however, would ensure long-lasting accountability measures statewide. But so long as labor union leaders still think cops are workers just like everyone else, then it’ll never happen.
@1: “…cops have the exclusive power to kill and imprison people,”
Metro bus drivers have the power to kill pedestrians, cyclists, and even persons in automobiles. I once saw a bus driver not open the doors for a non-paying passenger until the police arrived to take custody of that passenger. So, do we need separate rules for negotiating labor contracts with Metro bus drivers, too?
Couldn’t we just fire them all and replace them with cops from Norway instead?
@1 if a Metro bus driver runs someone over do they get fired or does the head of Metro dock them some vacation days, which sanction is then overturned by an arbitrator?
Cops aren’t workers
@3: At least he made the bus run on time!
“The driver of the bus had a service record that showed at least 11 reported complaints of ‘Careless Driving’ in the years before the accident including incidents of speeding, red-light-running, and talking on his cellphone while operating the bus. He had been involved in 27 separate accidents and/or incidents that were investigated by Metro—several were found to be ‘preventable’ including one that happened less than 6 months before the Morrison tragedy.”
Metro just has a few bad apples, eh?
https://www.injurytriallawyer.com/news/settlement-reached-in-case-of-an-elderly-pedestrian-killed-by-king-county-metro-bus/
@1: Every person with a driver’s license and access to a vehicle has the power to kill someone. Any functionally mobile person has the power to try to forcibly detail someone.
But only police officers are given guns at taxpayer expense to do the former, and legal sanction to do the latter.
Unlike bus drivers and everyone else.
@5: We’re not talking about randos. We’re talking about unionized government employees, specifically their indemnification against personal responsibility for the legal consequences of their acts. Someone fatally run over by a bus is every bit as dead as someone fatally shot by a police officer. Why shouldn’t we require the same negotiating methods with the unions for each type of employee?
by
Gawd
Wormtongue
you DO work for SPOG:
‘The Man’
don’t NEED
no Stinkin’ Oversight
Unions
is Unions!
@7: I have not said anything against accountability. I have asked why one union of public employees whose on-the-job actions can kill people should be treated differently from another union of public employees whose on-the-job actions can kill people.
You’ve done just as good a job of answering that as has anyone else here.
@8 guns, the power to use deadly force, the fact they hold a special place in our society (as their testimony can lead to the loss of you freedom, life, etc.) – these are just a few of the reasons why police unions are different than say teachers, firefighters, etc.
@9: “guns”
Like the one Derek Chauvin used when he murdered George Floyd?
“the power to use deadly force”
That’s what was described @4.
“…their testimony can lead to the loss of you freedom, life, etc.”
A child’s testimony can lead to the loss of your freedom for a very long time. (And lead to the loss of your life in prison, too.)
“…police unions are different than say teachers, firefighters, etc.”
The example I gave was of bus drivers. Is the level of oversight & accountability recounted @4 acceptable? Or should it be improved?
@6: Read what you wrote: “Someone fatally run over by a bus is every bit as dead as someone fatally shot by a police officer. Why shouldn’t we require the same negotiating methods with the unions for each type of employee?”
Because we don’t equip bus drivers to shoot people, and grant them statutorily wide benefit of the doubt and qualified immunity when they do so.
They are (obviously) very different types of employee.
Rare moment when I support a Stranger position. The fact is that Govt, in general, is unique in that it often holds a legal monopoly on critical things, for good reason. You can’t privatize cops with competing companies. Nor the military. Nor air traffic control. Etc…
As a result, organized labor in those areas must be clipped in some levels of autonomy and negotiation power. We can’t have pissed-off military personnel just refuse to monitor critical data and respond to say, Russian or Chinese activity so they can get a buck. Reagan was actually right to not allow air traffic control to just stop as a negotiation tactic. And you can’t have Cops refusing to be under the rules the public demands as part of a compensation negotiation.
Bottom line, public sector unions must be limited in scope due to their special status, the more critical the sector, the more limited. Don’t like it? Get a private-sector union gig and strike to your heart’s content when needed.
@13: “…statutorily wide benefit of the doubt and qualified immunity…”
Sounds a lot like what led up to the events described @4.
Nothing will improve without politicians’ spines being stiffened.
cops can kill
with Impunity
their ‘unions’ allowing
them Immunity time off
& Phat untouchable Pensions
for their Cruelty which is for some
The whole fucking Point. 😉
wanna weed Out
the Bad Apples?
gonna hafta Eat
a fuckova Lotta
Worms firstly
and Hope they’ll
allow their Cameras
cum Evidence in Court
@14: And if we intend to create police alternatives, or alternate responders (whatever our terms for these services), then those public employees will need accountability on the same level as the police (and bus drivers). We may as well start upping the game for all of these public employees now.
@13, @17: Asked about running over a 94-year-old woman who was using a walker, the bus driver said she was going for a weapon. That’s why her death doesn’t bother you at all, amirite? 😉
@18: You’ve now jumped the shark and are making the opposite case from what you hope to make.
Police officers are subject to a distinctive standard that does not apply to bus drivers, or anyone else: “Introduced in Graham v. Connor, the “objectively reasonable” standard establishes the necessity
for the use and level of force to be based on the individual officer’s evaluation of the situation
considering the totality of the circumstances. This evaluation as to whether or not force is
justified is based on what was reasonably believed by the officer, to include what information
others communicated to the officer, at the time the force was used and “upon what a reasonably
prudent officer would use under the same or similar circumstances.””
@18
granny got run over
by a Bus? where’s
your Crocodile
tears Wormy
or did you just wanna
Weaponize her Death
to Further your Ugly
& Despicable little
Narrative?
bugger off
So
‘impunity’
cannot be Spoken
of when discussing the Po-po
before they were
Forced to wear Cameras
their Accusal vs Convictions
was an Unfunny Joke hardly Un-
surprising given they were ‘evolutions’
of former Slave Patrols given mostly free reign
and now
condescending
to wear or turn on their
Cameras is a Bargaining Chit.
“to protect
and serve”?
sure:
when
you’re
Wealthy.
@20: I continue to make the case for greater accountability for all public employee whose on-the-job actions can lead to the deaths of innocent persons. I do this in the hope of increasing the numbers and types of public employees who respond to crisis situations, so we can reduce the number of public interactions which lead to deaths. The responses here have so far been “b-b-b-but cops are different because [falsehood] [irrelevancy] [legalese],” none of which seems useful to advancing the cause of police reform.
“I do this in the hope of increasing the numbers and types of public employees who respond to crisis situations, so we can reduce the number of public interactions which lead to deaths.”
It’s a solved problem. Eugene OR has been using alternative crisis responders for 30 years, and more than a dozen cities are scaling up their own programs.
What were then called “police aides” were proven to be effective in 1973 and lots of departments have used “public safety aides” or “community service officers” for a long time.
It’s a non-issue for police reform – the issue is that retrograde departments don’t want to reform. Focus your efforts there.
@23: The issue you’re blithely ignoring is Seattle’s recent experiences with police reform. First came the epic plodding effort which has satisfied no one, then came the “defund” nonsense, which Seattle’s voters have thoroughly and repeatedly rejected at the polls. Proponents of “defund” explicitly tied it police alternatives, meaning Seattle’s voters may well view those with suspicion as well. Any “reform” which seems to exist only to hobble or reduce police effectiveness may well also get rejected by voters. That’s why focusing on responsibility for the police is a good thing, but appearing not to care about deaths caused by other public employees is not — and commenters in this thread have done a great job of not appearing to care about a 94-year-old woman dragged to her death by a Metro bus.
This is one of the few controversial positions where I agree with the Stranger. Our prior city council abdicated their authority, due to pressure from our state’s organized labor in support of a fellow union. Remember, during prior contract negotiations, ALL unions stood in support of police union demands. And, recognize that in our state the unions provide more campaign support than any other group. Our city council should have and now should maintain its authority over policy and practices. The police union should focus on comp and work rules other than technology [cameras], discipline and methods. I hope our new council has the strength to re-establish healthy oversight while recovering the respect of our officers.