The Seattle Police Officers Guild union contract expired at the end of 2020 and negotiations have been delayed by nearly a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mass protests following the killing of George Floyd.
SPOG and its contract have been put under a microscope in the past year as some activists argue that officers have avoided accountability and the Seattle Police Department lacks transparency. Advocates were frustrated with the previous contract, which took years to negotiate, saying that it turned its back on accountability measures the city passed in 2017.
With negotiations set to begin this spring, the Community Police Commission hosted a public forum Thursday discussing the nitty-gritty of police contracts and the upcoming negotiations.
Here are 11 things CHS heard during the CPC forum:
- The general chain of events before negotiations begin, as laid out by a city labor rep, are for the city to get feedback from various related agencies, including the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) and the CPC, then the Labor Relations Policy Committee (LRPC) finalizes bargaining priorities before the city and SPOG identify their bargaining teams. The LRPC includes several city council members and other city officials. It is chaired by Council President Lorena González, who is now running for mayor.
- What if once they get to the negotiating table, the city and SPOG can’t come to an agreement? Then the two sides enter mediation and, if that isn’t successful, followed by arbitration. In that case, a neutral third party comes in to resolve and decide on contract disputes. Some participants at the Thursday conversation noted they want to see changes to this “interest arbitration” process.
- CPC communications advisor Jesse Franz noted that the SPOG contract can supersede city law, such as the unanimously-passed 2017 accountability ordinance meant to bolster civilian oversight of disciplinary proceedings.
- Many speakers noted that the summer protests centered on Capitol Hill warrant stronger action toward accountability, with some community members calling for “full civilian oversight” of the police department.
- Aisling Cooney was one participant calling for such oversight, noting her experience being assaulted by at least five officers over the summer and saying the OPA shouldn’t be a part of contract negotiations because, in her estimation, it is not trusted by the community. “We need better,” Cooney said.
- The CPC itself drew the ire of some community members, including Cooney, frustrated with piecemeal measures that didn’t serve to truly change policing in Seattle. “I need a champion,” Cooney said. “And the other victims, they need champions. And our Black communities, they need a champion. And at this time, it doesn’t feel like CPC is that. It feels like the CPC is putting on little band-aids.”
- Liz Pachaud, co-chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, argued that “this is the saddest point that we’ve gotten to where we have just assumed and accepted that SPD officers are not capable of judgment, they’re no longer capable of reform, and we have to simply put boundaries on them before they kill more people. I’m livid that this is where we are.”
- Several times during the two-hour-plus meeting, the CPC pushed Senate Bill 5134, a state measure introduced this session that would prohibit police collective bargaining agreements from including provisions related to discipline and oversight, among other things. “We’re trying to change state law so that this isn’t an issue anymore,” Franz said. “It would basically make it so that accountability and all these things that we’re talking about aren’t something that are bargainable, we’re just able to implement police accountability.”
The bill had a hearing last month in a senate committee, but has not had a vote in the committee in the month since, not a good sign for its future in Olympia. - At the same time, there has been progress on a measure in the state House, which would require the establishment of a community oversight board for police, as some participants noted. That bill passed out of a House committee earlier this month on a largely party-line vote.
- SPOG president Mike Solan’s recent controversial tweets on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January could throw another wrinkle into contract negotiations. Adrienne Thompson, policy director from Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office, said “the mayor had also concerns about the Twitter feed that was happening.”
- University of Washington assistant professor and police reform activist Angélica Cházaro noted Decriminalize Seattle’s priorities for the SPOG contract negotiations, which has as its top priority no barriers to downsizing the police department. The advocacy group’s eventual goal is to dismantle SPD.
The conversation comes as Mayor Jenny Durkan and City Hall gird to start what will likely be difficult negotiations in the face of the #defundSPD movement and the start of transitioning more city spending from policing to social and community programs.
It seems unlikely Durkan, a former federal prosecutor, will be able to lead the city to a peaceful resolution on the SPOG contract issues. Durkan announced in early December that she will not seek reelection as her term runs out later this year.
Some of the battle will take place outside City Hall as labor groups distance themselves from SPOG, new groups like the Washington Build Back Black Alliance form, and legislators address police reform measures at the state level to make it easier to get rid of bad cops.
At the end of 2018, the Seattle City Council approved a hotly debated new contract for the Seattle Police Officers Guild that critics said didn’t go far enough to cement needed reform. It was a six-year deal. Most of the deal struck that November was about the past — a back-dated contract to cover the city’s officers who had been working without an agreement since 2014.
The 2018 agreement ended with 2020. In the meantime, the deal holds until a new contract can be pounded out.
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