With multiple scandals involving dozens of police officers, trust in the Oakland Police Department has hit an all-time low. And if there were ever a time to strengthen accountability for the city's police officers, this is it. Why then are the city’s labor unions—both police and civilian—working overtime against proposed reforms that would make it easier to fire bad apples who abuse their power?
That’s the question posed by the East Bay Express last week. As the paper reports, the city’s largest public employee unions and the Alameda Labor Council have been lobbying against provisions of a November ballot measure that would overhaul OPD’s system of discipline. Thanks to those efforts, council members recently stripped language eliminating binding arbitration options that even the OPD admits have allowed bad cops to remain on the force. In addition, language allowing the police commission to access OPD’s records and obtain subpoena power over witnesses has also been removed.
The labor unions argue that the deleted provisions would have stripped workers’ rights and invited a slew of unintended consequences. But reform advocates say their lobbying efforts are helping preserve a system which one court-appointed investigator described as “broken.”
Read more about those efforts here.