The Implications of Police Unionism

Abstract

Virtually unstudied and largely unobserved, the police employee organization has evolved over the last fifty years into a strong economic and political institution. The rapid growth of militant police unionism as a new political and economic force in the society has raised serious problems for the police agency administrator in the exercise of his professional responsibilities in the area of law enforcement and his executive responsibilities in the area of personnel management. It has also raised serious public policy questions as to whether the protected right to organize and to bargain collectively which is being extended to all other public employees ought to be extended to the police without limitations. Underlying all these questions is the basic issue of whether official sanction should be extended to another entrant in the competition for control of local police operations.