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High court decision allowing towns, villages to mete out discipline to police
"It will no longer be part of negotiations between a town or village and its police union as to what the procedure for disciplining officers will be. The State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling won by the Town of Wallkill over its police union where the town argued it had the right to determine if a cop would be disciplined and what the punishment would be."
are town councils / supervisors going to use this as a witch hunt to go after officers they don't like? Such as the ones that gave them a ticket, arrested their darling son etc? If so do officers still have a recourse to sue to either get compensation or to get their jobs back?
There's not enough here for me to be sure whether to disagree or not. It reads almost like the union was arguing that they had the final say -- which seems kind of problematic to me. At the same time, like pgg says -- the council having the final say is problematic, too. Virginia's not a union state, so our discipline set up is different. In my department, the professional, hired/appointed/non-political town manager has the final say on matters, though we have a grievance process. Honestly, it's rare for the TM to do anything but accept the chief's recommendation on a disciplinary issue.
There used to be a bargaining agreement between the union and town that police discipline would be determined by an neutral arbitrator. Since this was something that the town agreed to during prior bargaining, it was believed that the policy should stay in place or be something that they might come to a new agreement over in the next contract. The court ruling effectively trumps the contract and gives the town board complete control over police discipline.
This is happening after the PBA has voted no confidence in its Chief and there are many problems between the union and the town. Complaints this year included: excessive mandated overtime, micromanaging, unsafe vehicles, 15 year old kevlar vests, etc...
Many people believe that discipline may be meted out with political agendas in mind. The ruling also causes precedence for this to potentially occur in every town and village across the state.
OK; more details make a huge difference. This is bullshit. I actually like the neutral arbiter idea. I think that the idea is that the TM is the neutral arbiter in our system. Other than maybe a final appeal, the elected officials shouldn't have a say in internal discipline -- anymore than they should shape enforcement of the laws.