Here & Now

Police Union Contracts and Police Reform

Frederica Freyberg:

It has been two months since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. A national conversation about police reform is ongoing. One of the issues is how to make sure the “bad apples” in the police profession can be removed from the force. “Here & Now” Senior Political Reporter Zac Schultz has been working with our colleagues from Wisconsin Public Radio and WisContext to examine police union contracts and the role they play in protecting bad cops.

News announcer:

The Black Lives Matter movement is highlighting police unions and the role they play in protecting officers.

Zac Schultz:

You’ve probably seen stories about the bad cops who get reinstated to the force, shielded from consequences by a bureaucratic system and a union contract.

Police Officer:

You react, I react.

Sam Sinyangwe:

So, we have to talk about limiting the power of police unions.

Zac Schultz:

Sam Sinyangwe is co-founder of Campaign Zero, a nonprofit group focused on eliminating police violence. It tracks police union contracts from cities across the country and has come up with a list of provisions which it says block accountability. Things like giving accused officers access to video and evidence before they are interviewed, not allowing officers to be interviewed immediately after an incident, and policies that erase old misconduct records after just a few years.

Sam Sinyangwe:

Even if you have the best police chief and the best mayor, in many cases they are limited in what they can do because the accountability system has already been negotiated away and the unions have veto power over any changes to that structure.

Zac Schultz:

We wanted to know whether any of these provisions are in union contracts in Wisconsin. Along with our colleagues at Wisconsin Public Radio and WisContext, we examine the police union contracts for eight cities: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha, Madison, Beloit, Green Bay, and Wausau. What we found is that Wisconsin is quite different from the rest of the country.

Jim Palmer:

There’s a level of transparency, accountability and independence that exists in Wisconsin that just does not exist elsewhere.

Zac Schultz:

Jim Palmer is the executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association or WPPA. It is Wisconsin’s largest law enforcement union, representing most of Wisconsin’s police officers, sheriff deputies and prison guards.

Jim Palmer:

We represent just over 10,000 members now from more than 300 local association affiliates.

Zac Schultz:

Most police union contracts in Wisconsin have very little to say about discipline.

Jim Palmer:

Unlike in other states, we don’t have contractual language that insulates officers from having to cooperate with those types of internal investigative interviews.

Zac Schultz:

State law says police misconduct in Wisconsin is governed by local police and fire commissions (PFC), citizen boards with members appointed by the mayor.

Jim Palmer:

Which are, at their very root, a legitimate form of civilian control and they have existed here in Wisconsin for over 100 years.

[crowd chattering]

Zac Schultz:

No mayor in Wisconsin can fire a police officer. And outside of Milwaukee, no police chief can either. Typically, an internal investigation will hand over evidence and a recommendation to the PFC and it will decide the punishment. And that leads to the second big difference in Wisconsin.

Jim Palmer:

The vast majority of law enforcement officers in the state of Wisconsin can’t arbitrate their discipline.

Zac Schultz:

Arbitration is often blamed any time a bad union employee keeps their job.

News announcer:

These officers and many others were fired and all of them got their jobs back thanks to a police union contract and state law that leaves final punishment in the hands of an arbitrator.

Sue Bauman:

An arbitrator basically listens to the parties and makes a decision. It’s kind of like being a judge but it’s a whole lot less formal.

Zac Schultz:

Sue Bauman is an arbitrator who has ruled on law enforcement discipline cases in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The arbitrators are supposed to be neutral. But both sides get to influence who hears the case.

Sue Bauman:

There is no question that unions and management keep score on arbitrators. They know better than arbitrators know how many times an arbitrator has found for the union or for the employer.

Zac Schultz:

In Wisconsin, sheriff’s deputies can arbitrate discipline, even though it is rare. Bauman is also the former mayor of Madison, and she says Wisconsin’s PFC model is not perfect.

Sue Bauman:

The fact that all discipline has to go through the PFC and that the police chief can only make a recommendation, and the mayor has absolutely no say doesn’t make sense to me.

Zac Schultz:

Bauman says no matter whether it’s arbitration or a PFC, the biggest factor in disciplining a police officer is whether their supervisors did their job in presenting the evidence.

Sue Bauman:

The employee broke the rules and the employer shows that to the arbitrator. The arbitrator will uphold the decision.

Don Taylor:

How many years have we heard you can’t fire a bad teacher, and now what we are hearing is well, you can’t fire a bad cop.

Zac Schultz:

Don Taylor is a professor at the University of Wisconsin’s School for Workers and specializes in labor relations. He says the most important protection in police contracts is due process.

Don Taylor:

Not just police contracts, but all contracts contain some sort of provision that the employer has to follow some type of due process in order to discipline or terminate any employee.

Zac Schultz:

Taylor says getting discipline to stick comes down to management following the proper steps.

Don Taylor:

In 70% of cases where an employee was reinstated, it was due to management error, overlooking mitigating circumstances, not creating a paper trail, things like that.

Zac Schultz:

What’s different about police union contracts is whether those steps include strict timelines, and letting the officer review the evidence before an interview. Taylor has done work for police unions in Wisconsin and says if those items are in the contract, they didn’t get there by themselves.

Don Taylor:

We shouldn’t forget those were not just simply carved into stone by the police officers and their union, the municipality or whatever government entity they work for agreed to those things.

Alfonso Morales:

But there’s always items in the contract we wish we could have.

Zac Schultz:

Which brings us to the Milwaukee Police Department and Chief Alfonso Morales.

Alfonso Morales:

If you read between the lines, most often somebody commits crime, they eventually lose their job but that’s after the due process.

Zac Schultz:

Under state law, the city of Milwaukee is treated differently, and that extends to the police department. The only special provision related to discipline in the union contract says officers can review bodycam or squad car video before being interviewed about an incident. Here, the chief of police imposes discipline and the PFC is called the Fire and Police Commission and it acts as a court of appeals to the chief’s discipline.

Alfonso Morales:

When the Fire-Police Commission hears it, they here it two fold. Was the investigation done properly, that’s phase one. And phase two focuses on discipline.

Zac Schultz:

Chief Morales came up through the ranks in the MPD so he’s seen how the union works.

Alfonso Morales:

Sometimes the union gets tied up representing somebody that the entire organization, both union members say that person should be pushed out of the department. They are giving law enforcement a bad image.

Zac Schultz:

As the debate over police reform continues at both the local and statewide level, Chief Morales says there is not a perfect solution.

Alfonso Morales:

There’s pros and cons to either way. I don’t think either — there’s no system that’s perfect.

Zac Schultz:

Reporting from Madison, I’m Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”