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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Taking on the unions

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  October 2nd, 2009 at 08:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The lefties are rather mad at me this morning.

The other day some of the police officers here in Macon, GA where I’m on city council suggested they were going to form a union. I, in turn, suggested I was going to push to shut down the police department and contract with our local sheriff for police protection.

Makes sense to me. A public sector union pits public servants against tax payers and a police union pits those who protect against those they protect.

I have a column on this today in our local paper.

Here’s an excerpt:

Admittedly, we need to do something to improve our police department. Pay is crummy and morale is bad. I have long advocated changes in the department’s leadership, and I think we should still consider it. Likewise, we have the ability to implement a pay scale if Macon’s City Council were willing to make tough choices about benefits.

Nonetheless, a unionized police force would be cutting off the officers’ noses to spite their faces. We should probably consider firing them just on principle.

According to several lawyers I have talked to, unionized police in Georgia do not get the benefits of collective bargaining with the city relating to the terms and benefits of employment. Likewise, they do not get to strike. But they do get to join and pay dues. If they want to throw their money away, sure, let them unionize. Knowing, however, that we have officers on payroll who have no problem throwing money down the drain suggests a purge might be worth considering.

Unions served a useful purpose in this country once, but that time has long since passed. We know that unions drive up costs. American car manufacturers are a testament to union costs and inefficiencies. Non-union automakers routinely out perform union automakers. Union work costs more than non-union work. Union rules regarding employee discipline incentivize lazy, undisciplined and selfish workforces.

We know that unions take thuggery to a new level. All one needs to see are videotapes of health care town halls throughout August. The assemblies might have been vocal, but were without violence until the SEIU and AFL-CIO showed up. A unionized police force would be just one more gang our police would have to deal with.

You can read the whole thing here.

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COMMENTS

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  • JoeG

    is impede the process of firing officers who need to go.

  • 4life

    others to go your way. Or, why can’t the city just make the improvements that are needed? It seems like you think their gripes are legit. Unfortunately poor management often leads to unions being voted in. Maybe its the direct management of the police force that needs weeded out and not the whole force, unless you are sure the sherif’s office would do a better job anyway. And is there more money in the county than the city so that they would have more resources anyway? Is that another reason to get rid of the city force? I agree that in general and in the long run unions do more harm than good for the union members as well as the company/city.

  • Achance

    do that by providing an environment where a union can thrive. If, as you say, the officers have poor pay and supervision, the city can either improve their wages and conditions on its own initiative or have to deal with organized employees.

    Republican and conservative politicians foolishly alienate law enforcement officers who tend themselves to be conservative lot, though their unions are not. By creating the conditions where they conclude that they must organize to secure better conditions you are handing that constiituency to the Democrats – who do know how to use such a constituency.

    Georgia doesn’t have a bargaining law and is a right to work state, so it’s not like some officers association is going to be a leviathan with overwhelming legal rights. If a voluntary employee association with no legal rights upsets you, you ought to try dealing with a real police union. Macon might be better served if you just invited the leaders over for coffee and discussed their issues and tried to do something for them. If you don’t solve it that way, maybe next session you’ll be appearing before a committee of the General Assembly to testify about why Georgia shouldn’t have a police and fire bargaining law.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    :)

    …or are you really advocating co-option – which is a great, time-honored tactic so long as its the other side, not yours, that’s being co-opted.

    Whatever the label, your labor relations dvice to Erick is spot on, as usual – and good common sense too. Not to mention good for continued viability of conservative politicians like Erick.

    And if you want to see what happens when the unions are given a foothold on public safety sector, just look at California where runaway police and prison guard unions have a stranglehold on state and even local politics. Case in point is this story from the Oakland Tribune earlier this week.

    Don Perata still making bank from prison guards’ union

    Oakland mayoral candidate and former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has continued to have a lucrative relationship with the powerful state prison guards’ union since he left office in December.

    State records show that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association’s Truth in American Government, or TAG, Fund paid Perata Consulting $40,000 in the first quarter of 2009; the union’s Issues Committee, a separate entity from its government fund, paid Perata Consulting $60,000 in the year’s first half. Other records show that Perata Consulting is registered to Nick Perata, Don Perata’s son, but communications consultant Jason Kinney said Tuesday that both father and son have an ownership interest in the firm.

    So when this kind of money starts spilling into local elections, nobody’s going to be left standing to protect the citizens from union predations on the public treasury.

  • Achance

    The best way to deal with unions is to not set up situations where you have to deal with them. I’ll be honest, all our correctional officers had to do was whisper the words “CCPOA” and “affiliate” and I started looking for ways to be generous.

    ‘Course, I should keep my mouth shut because supervisors and managers doing stupid stuff make me a lot of money!

  • jimnden

    You may have said this – but it bears repeating. Collective bargaining in police departments fundamentally changes the relationships between those in the union and those outside. Officers no longer worry about orders from a supervisor – they are several steps away from getting any kind of punishment. Every supervisory moment is inherently subject to the contract. And what happens if the sergeant is the Union President? Where does his/her loyalty sit? Read the fine print, Sarge – you pledged loyalty to the Teamsters, dude, not your community, not your organization, not your oath of office.

    And it leads to stupid stuff. My wife – once a deputy city manager where the cops had collective bargaining – presided over a hearing about a lost flashlight. Seems an officer left it in a patrol car when he went on ten weeks FMLA. When he got back it was gone. He demanded that the department replace it. Where I work we would just laugh at him. But he filed against the City, citing his “rights” under the contract and they had to go to an hours-long hearing.

    It goes beyond “keeping crappy officers.” It changes the paramilitary rank structure. It’s a bad idea.

  • jimnden

    With what? When you start throwing “things” at employees to buy their…loyalty?…who pays the bill? At what point do you call their bluff? Everyone does stupid stuff – my supervisor’s decision is especially stupid if I disagree with it, right? At what point do we all agree that life isn’ t fair and move on, instead of institutionalizing a cop’s natural tendency to bellyache?

  • Achance

    but when you have fully unionized law enforcement employees with access to interest arbitration and when all the comparable jurisdictions are deep, deep Blue, you’d best really have a good plan when you start calling “bluffs,” cause they ain’t bluffing.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    …and when the next episode comes to your locale, the results won’t be pretty.

    Much better to do what Art recommends, so that the show goes elsewhere.

  • Achance

    and the head of their corrections department as well. They’d filled me in on what it was like when you tried to bargain or work your budget through the CA legislature when the President of CCPOA was on a leave of absence from the union to work as a staffer to either the Senate President or the Chair of Senate Finance – can’t remember now which but either is bad enough.

    It was worth it to Alaska to keep the independent association happy so we weren’t dealing with the tender mercies of CCPOA after they’d bought some share of our Legislature. Just the way the World works.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    So it likely was the Senate President that the CCPOA President was staffer to…

    And as the earlier Trib article notes, the soap opera goes on, with Oakland about to get another abusive boyfriend for mayor, just like Jerry Brown, who after getting off their rocks decide they’re now ready to make up and move back in with their former mistress*.

    Can’t say that an invisible mayor is much better (Dellums), but at least being ignored was a (small) step up from degradation.

    *Political metaphor strictly – I have no idea what these guys do in their private lives.

  • jimnden

    for the respectful reply. But you didn’t answer my question. Public sector “generosity” is expressed with taxpayer money. California’s generosity – how’s that working out for them? What’s their budget deficit and how much of it is because of public union contract guarantees? Just asking.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    I don’t know the exact amounts at the state budget level (and many costs are buried from easy view), but certainly the overgrown public sector unions are driving much of the California deficits and making it difficult to cut back on expenditures.

    The biggest hazards looming dead ahead are the unfunded pension liabilities – this is certainly a problem at the state level, but it’s at the local level that this is a giant iceberg because the future liabilities of local public employees dwarfs the ability to meet them; we’ve already seen Vallejo trying to declare bankruptcy, and many other municipalities are heading to insolvency.

    And again, this has to do with giving away taxpayer money to buy labor peace with the unions and the impact of union political donations and retributive power on local and state politicians. Don Perata is just one leading example of this unholy alliance between managment (politicians) and unions.

    Art is the labor management expert here, but the argument I’m reading here is that city leaders need to come up with appropriate responses to legitimate issues, and that involves keeping longer-term interests in mind, i.e. preempting unionization efforts.

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    I would like to start the drive for a constitutional amendment that anyone working for government, at any level cannot organize and all public employee unions are illegal.

  • jimnden

    I’ve been in LE for 25 years. As a CA cop, I’d now be working for…I dunno, maybe 40 cents on the dollar? In my state I’m in a “defined contribution” plan so I hired a financial planner and she’ll tell me when I can retire. At the rate things are going…
    My friend is a union employee of United Airlines. Care to guess what his pension looked like after they emerged from bankrupcy?
    Let’s ask Art – what is it about public sector employment that we just keep demanding revenue streams from increasingly strapped citizens instead of saying to workers “Sorry, this is how much money we have and no more. Deal with it.” Heck, in our community some of the departments have picked up the tempo of traffic enforcement to generate revenue. The public as prey – great idea. Recently, the CA public revolted when a tax increase was put to a vote, yes? Apparently, they don’t take well to being prey.
    Civil, can I ask – will it take insolvency and unincorporation of cities before somebody realizes that we’re broke? Will CA even allow a city to cease operations?

  • Achance

    It is buying their political favor if you’re a Democrat and trying to keep them off the streets and out of your capitol’s hallways if you’re a Republican.

    If you’re a Republican, you either have to run on and win on a platform of provoking an existential battle with unions or you have to have something that looks like peace with them. Even if you postion yourself for the existential battle, you can’t trust your “friends.” As soon as there is any controversy, all the Republicans will start distancing themselves from you and going on TV talking about how they would have done it since they’re so much smarter than you. The Democrats are predictable and nobody who voted for you is going to listen to them, but the Republicans criticizing you leaves a mark.

    The closest I came to a true existential battle was in the Hickel Administration where up until he decided he wasn’t running for re-election, we had a free hand. Cowper, though a Democrat, was willing to play serious hardball with them, but he wasn’t willing to challenge their existence. In Murkowski, we simply didn’t have the political capital, nor did Murkowski have much interest, in an existential battle so we wanted peace as cheaply as we could get it. If they’d gone after him directly, I have no doubt that he would have responded in kind, but I’m glad I never had to find out if we would have won.

    But, as always, I love the enthusiasm of people who’ve never even had to think about it in any detail for going after the unions. I wish them the best and if they pull it off, perhaps they’ll come back and write a diary about how they did it. I wait with bated breath!

  • Achance

    that keeps demanding revenue streams. The answer is Democrats. It really is that simple. Well almost, there are some stupid Republicans that think they can buy a union’s love.

    Now, let’s make this clear; I’m not talking about low-wage, non-union, right to work states. I’m talking about the unionized high-wage states since they’re the ones that have compulsory unionization for public employees as well.

    I’ve been through saying not only no but Hell No to big, powerful national unions. I’ve been offered bribes, had the dime dropped to my wife or boss a bazillion times, had my life threatened, been the target of editorial page campaigns, had nubile young things become suddenly ever so attracted to me; I know this game! What you have to do if you really want to win a war, not just a battle, with a big public employee union is start the war when your hand comes off the Bible and then four years later, win re-election. They can last that long, and they’re betting you can’t. Usually, they’re right. Those taxpayers that you’re so anxious to defend get tired of all the upset and controversy, vote in a Democrat, and s/he fires people like me, brings peace unto the land, and gives the unions a buttload of those stupid taxpayers’ money. Welcome to my world and Google me sometime.

  • Achance
  • jimnden

    for the seminar. Nothing beats asking an SME a question and then sitting back to listen. Gives me a bit of perspective about the bigger picture in our country. So thanks for taking the time.

    Oh…had my life threatened, too. Had a guy threaten to assault my wife while I was busy at work. Been followed home by people with nothing left to lose. Been shot at, propositioned and once fought a guy over a gun. Don’t care to think about what would have happened if I’d lost. Still ended up in the ER. At the time, I was making 25 a year, working graveyard shift with a BS and a JD. Google don’t know me.

    Welcome to my world.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    The real threat today is the Chamberlain Republicans (as in Neville). That’s what you’re talking about with the unions (if I read you right).

    And now they’re starting to reappear out of the woodwork in increasing numbers with ObamaCare, eager to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    …and the city continues to operate. Filing for bankruptcy in itself doesn’t mean that the city stops operatinig. As far as the ultimate options in terms of contract renegotiations, pension liabiliity relief, unincorporation – that’s outside any expertise of mine.

    However, I did recently read that the California House in June passed a law that will essentially require state approval (specifically the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission) for cities, counties and special districts before they could file for bankruptcy under Federal law. WSJ article on this

    Not surprisingly, California unions are behind this effort.

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    when the nation finally goes bankrupt and we are facing hyper inflation, there might be a whole lot of things possible that do not seem possible now.

  • archer52

    Erick is wrong on his position about keeping police departments non-union. I say this from the position of a person not taking advice from lawyers, or getting the perception of what a union does from observing the corruption of the union workers in the car industry, but from a man who has lived and worked in both union and non-union environments. I just retired from a department that was unionized many years ago but only in the last fifteen or so actually used the union to help give a voice to the department?s line officers. It was an invaluable service.

    Erick?s blind spot caused by years of watching what the AFL-CIO did is unfortunate, or he would realize the answer to his problems he listed are in unions. Here is one part of his complaint.

    ?Admittedly, we need to do something to improve our police department. Pay is crummy and morale is bad. I have long advocated changes in the department?s leadership, and I think we should still consider it. Likewise, we have the ability to implement a pay scale if Macon?s City Council were willing to make tough choices about benefits.?

    There is more than one kind of union. We were part of the FOP and found their collective bargaining procedures to be fair for both sides. The goal of the FOP was to make sure the City council and the bureaucrats inside the City had a clear understanding of what were the needs and desires of the actual patrol officers. Erick has to understand the dynamics going on inside police departments, especially those the size of Macon, Ga. Too many times we had our own upper management lie to the politicians in order to curry favor. Often those in management would trade their status in the eyes of the mayor and council for our well being. Things would be sliding out of control on the streets and we would see our Police Chief and our Majors talking in front of council telling them all is well, like a perverted version of Kevin Bacon?s scene in Animal House. It is human nature to rule in this manner. We found the City council was either uncaring or unwilling to give money and benefits to the police personnel at first because our own leaders were telling them we were happy the way things were and the politicians were more than happy to buy the crap, even though they knew better. All politics everywhere is the same. People will abuse people for their own benefit, if they can. Even if it is a soft abuse, it is still an abuse.

    One thing the union did bring was rules and procedures. You couldn?t fire or demote anyone without the risk of a hearing chaired by members on both sides. That caused problems for the management because they had to bring a pesky thing like PROOF to the hearing. I?m going to take the time to explain this in an example:

    During my first couple of years there, I was on one of those committees. A white female veteran officer who was suffering from a physical issue was missing a lot of work. The department would not medically retire her, or bend to give her an inside job. She was a good person and a good officer, but her body was breaking down a little. Now, other ?favorites? of the management were getting cushy jobs, usually right after they did some dirty work for a certain Captain. We were called to a termination hearing. During the testimony that Captain smugly testified he was examining the absences of all the department personnel, as he does annually, and found she was the worst offender. He wanted her fired. The head of the committee, another weak police Captain was more than ready to fire the woman. Case closed. Until the secretary of the first Captain testified and I asked her about the annual absence review to which she replied, ?What review?? She went on to say this was the first time the Captain asked for it, and that it came up right after a watch commander complained about the female. It came out that an officer, who was buddies with both, hated the female officer and wanted her fired. So the Captain and the watch commander conspired to do just that. But they needed a reason. They came up with the absence excuse. Now, I?m not saying the Captain in charge of the committee was slow on the uptake and in a hurry to fire her, but after the testimony he said to us. ?Well, let?s vote to fire her!? To which I replied, ?Not unless you want to write her a big check you won?t.? He seemed not to get the issue. He was told to chair the meeting, act like he believed the lying Captain, and then fire the woman. It had always been this way before. They had always gotten their way. I looked over at the Captain and then back to the City lawyer who was sitting in. She looked at him and said, ?He?s right. You fire her and we might as well write the check right now and get it over with. You can?t target a person because you don?t like her, because she is a woman, or target her because she is ill.? In the end, the offending Captain decided he hated me, but the woman was able to find better accommodations. The Captain did his best to punish me, but the union?s rules of procedure always protected me. After a while, he got tired of harassing me and went after another poor schmoo.

    Did we protect those that were poor officers? No. The members of our union weren?t corrupted like many in the SEIU. In fact, the FOP was manned by many former officers and we had standards. If the officer was bad, all that was asked is the procedures were followed in order to terminate. If the officer made a mistake, we understood no one was perfect and worked with the department to moderate punishment. I had a friend, a good guy, who got in trouble over a nutjob woman. She was so crazy she wheeled a cart around to carry the extra crazy in it. He couldn?t see it. The reason was simple. He was one of our brightest and most capable detectives who handled all the bad cases; rapes, child molestation, murders, sex murders, etc. He did it for years and did a fantastic job, gaining confessions from some very bad, bad people. Our department?s management did not see the need to spell him or give him extra help. (Our leaders? favorite saying was ?We never did that, we don?t do that now, and why do we need to do that in the future?? I know, stupid, but what can you say? Human nature.) After a while, he became damaged by the constant onslaught of dark crimes. It isn?t like the movies or TV, folks. Nothing like it. You smell them, you hear them, and you feel their slime ooze over you. And no amount of showers will get it off of you. He got in trouble over the woman. We tried to warn him, but men are blind when they think they are the ?knight in shining armor? that will make a difference this time. In another era he would have been fired, but instead he was demoted, punished and made to basically start all over again. During his second time around he had the opportunity to work his way back up. In the end, he was beloved by his troops, kept them safe, and taught them how to do the job right. He was able, finally, to get the slime off of him and be a productive member, a highly productive member, of our department. Something he couldn?t have done without the protection of the union.

    We also suffered favoritism, which killed moral quicker than anything else. People were being promoted and/or given cherry assignments based on whether they hunted with or fished with or gopher-ed for the Captains and the Majors of our department. Our union demanded and got standardization of testing and a way to appeal the promotions. What they did was cut the ?good old boy? network off at the knees. This loss of power drove the management crazy. They actually had to get the men below them to follow them using skill and knowledge, not promises of payoffs.

    Another of Erick?s comments, gained from talking to lawyers;

    ?According to several lawyers I have talked to, unionized police in Georgia do not get the benefits of collective bargaining with the city relating to the terms and benefits of employment. Likewise, they do not get to strike. But they do get to join and pay dues. If they want to throw their money away, sure, let them unionize. Knowing, however, that we have officers on payroll who have no problem throwing money down the drain suggests a purge might be worth considering.?

    Lawyers, working for the City, are the last people he should talk to about this. Talk to the men. Not the Captains, not the Major, and certainly not the Police Chief, they all have their own agenda. (DUDE! What are you thinking?? Lawyers?? People trained to lie, based on who is paying them?? Didn?t you get the whole Clinton/Clinton/Obama/Obama insight yet?!)

    Our union never tried to fleece the City like the unions in the auto industry did. We realized that; 1. It wasn?t the right thing to do. 2. It wasn?t the job of the union to make too much money for the police. We did demand decent pay and decent benefits. We also influenced hiring practices. You have to remember when the proverbial ?s**t? hits the fan you don?t want the guy next to you to be Jackie Gleason or his son from Smokey and the Bandit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H71AzUzR20) That drew to us many good applicants that turned into good officers. We also helped in picking political candidates by vetting them in meetings with our union. In our city, we carried some weight in council meetings. What we looked for were pro-law enforcement politicians who really wanted to keep the city safe. Our influence helped elect decent people with good common sense.

    Did we ever threaten hard ball tactics? Once. Our union, a truly non-aggressive bunch, decided to picket. We couldn?t and wouldn?t strike; we knew where our duty laid. But picketing, and backing police friendly candidates? That?s different, and immediately the Council realized we were a force to be reckoned with. Over the years, our influence helped all of the employees across the City. Fire and civilian unions worked with us and with the City to make sure all employees were protected and provided a decent work experience. Nobody got rich. Nobody built a resort getaway with union dues. In fact, this year, from what I understand, the police officers are taking cuts in certain benefits and pay. We?ve done this in the past when the circumstances demanded it. In five years, when things get better, the union will ask to revisit those issues and perhaps the men and women can regain the losses. It is part of a give and take between two represented bodies both deserving of respect and acknowledgment.

    The key is that both sides need representation and a voice. If not, one side will always abuse the other. The difference between big city unions and small city unions is the ability to talk to each other. You know the guy on the other side personally as well as professionally. The union allows for you two to remain friends while hammering out differences.

    No, Erick?s wrong on this. If he is worried about union abuse I suggest he look into the FOP himself. He?ll find them a decent group willing to do what is right. If that crimps the style of Macon?s ?good ol? boy? network then too bad. Just because it has always been so, doesn?t mean it always has to be that way forever.

  • janis

    Excellent comment and you made great points. It really helps to see things from different points of view, as you have presented here. Thanks for your service in law enforcement and for sharing your insight on this issue.

  • Achance

    you don’t act like you know anything about labor relations.

  • Achance

    organize employees into a union; my original point above.