PAX Centurion - Summer 2014

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • Summer 2014 • Page 27 Why should Boston Police Officers care about what happens to California teachers? Legal Notes: Alan H. Shapiro, Esq. Sandulli Grace P.C., Counsel to Members of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association A s the elites in our society continue to attack public employ- ees and particularly public education, a state court in Cali- fornia has handed them a great victory, at least for now. On June 10, a state court judge ruled in a 16-page “tentative decision, 1 ” that state laws guaranteeing tenure, seniority protection, and just cause for discipline/discharge are unconstitutional. Tenure, seniority, and just cause - these are three of the basic principles protecting po- lice officers from arbitrary and unfair treatment. Whether we like it or not, things that happen in California have a way of working their way back across the rest of the country, whether it’s surfboards, taking a right turn on red, or Ronald Reagan. This case in California follows a pattern of attacks against unions, and particularly public sector ones, at the state and national levels. Few people realize that union density (the percentage of workers who belong to unions) in the U.S. has been steadily declining for over 40 years. At the same time, union density among public sector workers (federal, state, and local) has been generally increasing. In 2013, about the same numbers of workers in the public and pri- vate sector were unionized, but the 7.3 million union members in the private sector represented only 6.7% of that workforce; while public sector density was 35.3%. 2 In the 1950’s, over 35% of private sec- tor workers, and about one-third of all workers, were unionized. So, we have gone from a society where roughly 1 in 3 workers belonged to a union to one where, in the private sector, only about 1 in 16 is unionized. But what does this have to do with Boston Police Officers?A lot, and here’s why. Collective bargaining has produced enormous gains for workers in general, and police officers in Massachusetts more specifically. We take for granted the right to belong to a union, which can then negotiate a contract with wages, benefits, and job protec- tions. But these are not inalienable, constitutional rights, such as free speech or due process or (if it’s your thing) the right to bear arms. Collective bargaining for local government workers (police, teachers, fire fighters) only exists as long as a state law provides for it. Even now, in many states (mostly in the South and Southwest) there is no law giving public workers the right to bargain a contract and in some states (Georgia for instance), it is illegal to bargain with a public union. Here in Massachusetts, we have only had a comprehensive bargaining law (Chapter 150E) since 1974. It is because of such state laws that when the former Mayor resisted the BPPA’s legitimate bargaining demands, we were able to put the case before an arbitrator and make at least some modest gains. 1 http://www.scribd.com/doc/229021741/Vergara-v-California 2 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm 3 http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-supreme-court-case-that-could-clobber-public-sector-unions/283232/ But what state legislatures give, they can also take away. That is what has been happening throughout the country. In 2011, Governor Walker inWisconsin pushed through changes in that state’s bargain- ing laws which pretty much obliterated the non-public safety unions. Although police and fire were exempted from those changes, it would seem only a matter of time before they too receive the same treat- ment. Michigan, home of the UnitedAutoWorkers, once perhaps the most powerful union in the country, recently enacted legisla- tion allowing workers in a union shop to refuse to join their union, pay nothing, and get the same benefits as union members. There is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court a case ( Harris v. Quinn ), which would essentially make what happened in Michigan the law of the land. 3 If the lawyers for the right-wing National Right ToWork Committee win their case, no public sector union could compel the people it represents to pay anything for that representation. So, the California court’s finding that teachers’ job protection rights are unconstitutional becomes another weapon for those who want to destroy unions and public ones in particular. These groups are largely funded by the same people who fund right wing causes in general, the Koch Brothers, for example. These ex- tremely wealthy people (a) don’t like paying taxes, and (b) want to elect politicians who agree with them. Paying decent wages and benefits to public employees costs money and that money comes from taxes. Unions, and particularly public sector ones, provide some money but, even more importantly, lots of free manpower, to politicians who support their causes. Weak- ening those unions also weakens the politicians whom the unions support. While the public sector unions are under attack, there are fewer private sector workers who enjoy the benefits of union membership. When over one-third of all workers were unionized, an argument that cops or teachers or fire fighters did not deserve decent pay, retirement, health insurance, and job protection would not resonate. Now, with 15 out of 16 workers employed at the whim of management, many can be convinced that their taxes should not be used to pay police officers (whose overall earnings are an annual “story” in every local paper in the state) better wages and benefits than they get. Without getting overly hyperbolic, I am reminded of the quota- tion on the Holocaust Memorial behind City Hall. If we do not speak up for others whose rights are taken away, (“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade union- ist”), when they come after our rights, no one will be there to speak up for us.