a further look at police militancy and collective bargaining-1977

7/29/2019 A Further Look at Police Militancy and Collective Bargaining-1977

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A FURTHER LOOK AT POLICE MILITANCY AND COLLECTIVE BARGAININGAuthor(s): Paul E. LawsonReviewed work(s):

Source: Crime and Social Justice, No. 8 (fall-winter 1977), pp. 64-67Published by: Social Justice/Global OptionsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29766021 .

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A FURTHER LOOK ATPOLICE MILITANCY AND COLLECTIVE BARGAININGPaul E. Lawson

I. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this essay is to continue a dialogueon police militancy that Gerda Ray began in herarticle "Police Militancy" (Crime and SocialJustice, Summer, 1977:40-48). Specifically, twoobjectives are attempted. First I wish to raise someissues concerning the actual content of Ray'smaterial. Iwant also to indicate some thoughts onthe direction police collective bargaining is likelyto take in the next decade or so. Pertinent to thissecond objective is a personal ambivalence: mystrong belief in and support of unionism forAmerican workers versus my negative gut reactionsto some peculiar aspects of collective bargainingamong social control agents such as the police. Iassume many readers share this ambivalence andbelieve that a continued dialogue is necessary ifweare to come to grips with this increasing collectivebargaining phenomenon.

II. THOUGHTS ON RAY'S "POLICE MILITANCY'

I generally agree with Ray's position on policemilitancy, but a few additional comments arenecessary to more fully understand the emergingcollective bargaining potential within police work.First, Ray is correct when she states:

In large measure, today's police aremoved to collective action by the realiza?tion that the declining legitimacy of thestate subjects them to the explicit hostilityof large segments of the population. Policework has become harder.... They areattacked, on the one hand, by progressivegroups demanding the curtailment of theircoercive power and, on the other hand, byreactionary elements calling for law andorder and increased police efficiency (p. 43).Ray alludes to the fact that the police arecaught squarely between the system (governmentalexpectations concerning adherence to officialmoral codes, usually expressed through criminalstatutes) and the public (the conglomerate ofcitizens who hold divergent and highly individual?ized moral views). Being in the middle means theindividual officer is trapped between: 1) collec?tively held, public moral expectations and privatelyheld, situational ethics; 2) calls for absolute socialresponsibility versus cries for increased personalfreedom; and 3) opposing social groups with greatvariations in power, wealth and political ideologies,and all of these groups making conflicting demandson the officer.From the officers' perspective, heat (antagon?ism, humiliation and outrage) is directed at themfrom all social spectrums. The patrol officer isexpected to be all things to all people. But he orshe knows that the police cannot solve everyone'sproblems or blues (their pensiveness, their dejec?tion, their sadness and their depression of spiritresulting from victimage instrinsically found withinour society). At best, officers hope for temporaryresolutions knowing that no one is entirely happywith their policing efforts.

Fall-Winter 1977 /64

* Dr. Lawson has taught sociology at Montana StateUniversity for three years. His article "Toward aHumanistic Socialist Paradigm for Prison" appears inInternational Journal of Criminology and Penology(upcoming winter issue).

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The ability to manage only temporary solutionsto community conflict coupled with constantcriticism from the public causes officers toincreasingly look at collective bargaining as amechanism for possibly aiding them in acquiringmore control over their occupational life. After all,the officer understands that union movements inthe private sector have historically aided workersin achieving both higher standards of living andallowed workers to rid themselves of some forms ofoccupational alienation and exploitation. However,more about this perception and its possibleimplications later in this essay.Additionally, Ray correctly suggests that policeadministrators are becoming generally less antago?nistic toward police unions and are at leastbegrudgingly accepting union officers within theirown departments.

Police administrators no longer opposeunionism of the police as strenuously as theyonce did. The legality of that position hasbeen eroded and police unions have not hadthe disruptive effect that their earlyopponents had feared... .Police unions havenot increased the frequency of police strikesand there is some indication that, in the longrun, unionized police forces will prove moretractable in labor negotiations than indepen?dent associations (p. 46).It seems to me that Ray is right in suggesting apath that other union-employer relationships havetaken in the past, a path that has not always beenin the interest of the average union member. Aftera period of ugly confrontation, often leading to themurder of union leaders and followers, the legiti?macy of the union attempt is established.Eventually fewer and fewer differences appearbetween companies and unions (at least officialdomwithin the unions). Call it cooptation or selling outby union officials: we must realize that unionemployer relationships are generally forms ofsymbiosis. Each side survives only because it allowsthe other side to survive. Increasingly there willdevelop within policing a parallel that can be foundwithin private sector union movements. Afterawhile there is little difference between bigbusiness and big unionism, at least in the actions,values and behaviors of corporative executives andunion leaders. A quick look at the political activi?ties of corporation tycoons, and such a bedfellow asGeorge Meany in the 1972 elections, is all that isnecessary. Not all labor leaders or labor membersfollowed Nixon and his anti-labor politics, but manydid because Nixon stood for status quo politicswhich were comfortable for many American union

people.65 [ Crime and Social Justice

Concerning another issue, one problem that Ihave with Ray's article centers on what I considerto be her use of politically inspired rhetoricallanguage. Too often she uses phrases that lackanalytical and scholarly precision. Examplesinclude: "doing the dirty work of the ruling class"(p. 40), "local bourgeoisie" (p. 41), "most policeunions espouse an anti-working class ideology ofpolice professionalism" (p. 46) and "local andnational bourgeoisies who find it necessary tomaintain the police as an anti-working class force"(p. 47). Although I certainly agree with the gist ofher statements, radical analysis of contemporarycriminal justice issues does not have to be burdenedwith unnecessary "nineteenth century Marxistverbiage." Sloppy use of political rhetoric, eitherfrom the left or the right, is not to be tolerated ifwe are truly concerned with seeking a betterunderstanding of social phenomena. In this regard,although Ray is correct to indicate that there is nomonolithic police institution, her use of terms like"local bourgeoisie," "national bourgeoisie," "antiworking class force," etc., gives the impression ofmonolithic possibilities within these othercategories.Finally, Ray's contention that the police have astrong class loyalty to something called "the localbourgeoisie" may in fact be an oversimplificationof how officers perceive themselves. She states,"Most police have been recruited from the workingclass, but the vast majority of them have in thecourse of their work switched their class loyalty tothe local bourgeoisie" (p. 43). A truer statementmight be that the police see themselves as beinghad by both the rich and the poor. In this sense theyshare an allegiance to what we may cautiously calla frustrated middle income view of Americansociety. This perspective certainly is anti-poor andoften overtly racist because anti-poor means nonwhite to many frustrated "middle Americans."Lower class and/or welfare status become tanta?mount to criminality because perceptions of thepoor show the poor as having little or no socialresponsibility. Possession of no social responsibilityis seen as a prerequisite for engaging in criminalbehavior or at least a factor that fosters continuedsocial unrest.Combine the false perception that the poor areinherently more criminal than middle or upperincome people with the fact that the poor are seenas an excessive tax burden and you have the basisfor an attitude of overt anti-lower class feeling.Yet it would be misleading to conclude that theaverage man's grievances are only directed at thepoor or that his loyalty is with the rich andpowerful. Actually the average working person,including the police officer, is caught between twoviews of criminality. There is fear of being



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victimized by the poor. However, the "middleAmericans" also know they are being victimized bythe rich and/or the politically powerful even thoughtheir understanding of this latter group may beappreciably less than their views on the former.We should not conclude that the police or"middle Americans" in general have a strongallegiance to the "local bourgeoisie" simply becausethey feel they understand lower class criminalitybetter than crime found higher in the socialhierarchy. We must remember that crimes againstpersons and simple street crimes against propertyare more likely to be understood by the averagewage earner because these activities are headlinenews in local newspapers and televisions. Moreimportantly, these crimes are perceived asthreatening immediate personal survival. On theother hand, there is a physical and psychologicalremoteness from such criminal activity as politicalcorruption of a "mundane variety," price fixing andmonopolies, pollution violations, etc., whichobscures a better understanding of "crimes fromabove." The negative Stereotypie assessment of thepoor can be maintained because poor people, morethan middle income people, live out their lives inpublic places and come under the scrutiny ofgovernmental control agencies such as the police,welfare and health departments.Strictly aligning the police with the economi?cally and politically powerful fails to credit thepolice with some ability to correctly understandinequality and social exploitation. I think it is fairto suggest that the police do reject bankruptwelfarism associated with liberal politics. Butalong with many middle income people, they alsoreject the taxation structure which favors the richover working class groups.All too often our scholarly efforts cause us toremain aloof from the problems suffered by the"silent majority." To dwell excessively on thenegative traits of middle income people (theirsexism, their racism and their narrowness ofthought) causes us sometimes to lose sight of thepersonal dues and victimage suffered by the vastnumbers of people who are neither among the poornor the rich and do not possess a loyalty to either.

III.REFLECTIONS ON THE NEXT DECADETwo points seem apparent when considering thefuture activities of police collective bargaining.First, the police are going to be increasinglyinfluenced by the perceptions of other workers,especially those in the private sector, and theirattempts to take more control of their dailyoccupational lives. Taking control implies creatinga strategy to reduce one's own alienation and

generally attempting to "democratize" decisionmaking within one's work through unionization.Second, the next decade is likely to see less policymaking coming exclusively under the rubric ofmanagerial prerogative. We will see police collec?tive bargaining "intruding" more into the adminis?trative bailiwick. Officers will continue to seektraditional union demands for higher economicgains. These demands will include ongoing activi?ties in the areas of higher pay, pay for court dutytime, better pension plans, paid lunch hours, over?time pay, night shift differentials, roll-call pay,better sick leave and vacation benefits and evenpaid liability insurance.However, more importantly, officers will likelyattempt to acquire greater control over issuesinfluencing their daily occupational lives becausethey perceive their tasks as becoming moredifficult (being trapped between a system theysometimes question and a public they sometimesdespise). Workers, especially patrol officers,within the "police industry" will seek policy-makingrights in personnel matters such as recruitment,selection, training and promotion of officers. Oppo?sition to unilateral administration decrees concern?ing such things as ticket quotas, use of militaryranks, making detective an assignment rather thana rank, lack of "master patrolman ranks" andadministration use of lateral entry will be foughtlegitimately by officers through collective bargain?ing. Equally, collective bargaining will no doubtcenter on manpower and equipment allocationissues such as one-officer patrol cars, opposition tocivilians doing certain police functions, demandsfor heavier armaments and dogs in patrol cars andthe use of private weapons by officers. Finally,

wecan expect officers, through union activity, to seeksuch things as the right to hold second jobs, live inor outside of the city they police (residencyrequirements), seek political offices, overtlysupport political causes and candidates (usuallyvery conservative) and to resist being on call whileoff duty.Movement toward the above issues is paralleledin the private sector. Industrial workers are seekingmore control over their jobs. They often refer toincreasing "job enrichment." They have engaged incollective bargaining, even threatened and/orcarried out strikes and other job actions and havegenerally been successful in at least reducing thelack of control over their occupational destinies.Public sector employees, including the police andother social control personnel such as probationofficers, correctional workers and parole agents,will likely attempt the same strategies. They willall try to bring their personal lives into a morecongruent pattern with their occupational lives.

Fall-Winter 1977 j66



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IV- ONCLUSIONThe problem we face as radical criminologists ishow to deal with our desire to see the workers take

increasing control of their own destinies and at thesame time deal with our uneasiness about thedemands of social control agents, such as thepolice, for more autonomy to determine for them?selves what their occupational careers will ulti?mately be. Ray is absolutely right when shesuggests that the police have historically lent theirsupport to racist and reactionary politics. Knowingthis and also realizing that the public needs morerather than less control over the activities of itssocial control specialists, how do we reconcile ourhumanistic concerns for improving the plight of allworkers (including the police) with our desire tohave police agencies and police officers heldaccountable to the people and not just to them?selves? This dilemma certainly needs furtherconsideration and discussion. Particular attentionshould be directed to the victimage suffered bysocial control personnel as they attempt to do anincreasingly "unmanageable job."Let me conclude with what I see as some of thedangers posed by social control agents unionizing togain autonomy from both total administrativeprerogative and control by the general public.Historical events of the last decade alreadyillustrate a dangerous precedent. It seems to methat certain issues should not be determined by the

officers ?themselves through collective bargainingor administrative fiat. We must not allow eitherthe officers or their adminstrative leaders todetermine police policy exclusively by themselves,under the guise of decreasing worker alienation,promoting more "grass roots" decision-making orgiving more autonomy and job enrichment to theworkers.For example, to allow officers to negotiate:1) entrance requirements (thus promoting whiteracism), 2) not wearing name tags or identificationnumbers (thus facilitating nondetection of policemisbehavior or illegality), 3) opposing externalcitizen investigation powers (thus avoiding investi?gation by anyone but the police themselves) and4) restrictions on personal weapons (thus increasingthe coercive potentials of the police), could sub?stantially reduce public control over the police inthe name of job enrichment or autonomy for theworkers.In sum, there is little doubt that the police willbe able to make gains into traditional areas ofmanagerial prerogatives. They will likely even havepublic support for their claims. After all, how cancitizens or politicians appear to be anti-law andorder or anti-police. Yet there is grave danger inallowing the police (under the rubric of collectivebargaining to achieve increased job enrichment) topromote the "hidden agenda" of removing them?selves from what little public control there

currently is over them.

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a further look at police militancy and collective bargaining-1977

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