Background Information You are the new city manager for Sunbelt City. It is small (50,000 population) but growing at about 10 percent annually, as retirees and business owners move south seeking warmer winters and lower taxes. The city currently employs about 100 sworn police officers. The city charter classifies police officers as within the civil service system. Because public-sector collective bargaining is authorized for local governments in this state, those officers in nonsupervisory positions are also represented by the PBA (Police Benevolent Association).

Sunbelt is governed by a five-member elected city council. Last November, three incumbent council members were defeated by newcomers who ran on a platform of keeping taxes down by making government more effective and efficient. The two remaining council members also favor this objective.

The council has enthusiastically supported your strategy of reducing the city budget by bargaining hard with unions over salary and fringe benefits. By using the veiled threat of privatization or outsourcing as a “hammer,” you have successfully renegotiated contracts for the city’s solid waste and public works employees. Under the new contracts, trash collectors now work a full eight-hour day instead of being allowed to go home when their routes are finished. The public works department is now operating under a two-tiered contract that protects salaries and benefits for current employees but requires new employees to enter at lower salaries and to pay a higher proportion of their health benefit costs.

Now you face a challenge. A new council member suggests that you use the same strategy in renegotiating the contract with the PBA, up for renewal this year. You immediately sense trouble ahead as other council members have indicated a similar interest. Threatening solid waste and public works employees with privatization is one thing—it has been done all over the country, and many private trash haulers and maintenance companies do a thriving business. What are the alternatives to police officers hired through a civil service system? Will any alternative satisfy voters and the rest of the council, given that Sunbelt residents want both lower taxes and high-quality police protection? You hire a collective bargaining consultant and labor negotiator to provide you with expert advice in the matter. The consultant recommends that you consider three options: (1) hard bargaining with the PBA, (2) contracting for police services with the county sheriff’s office, or (3) contracting with a private security firm.

The Outcome
You decide on the first option (hard bargaining), backed by credible statements that if hard bargaining is unsuccessful you intend to pursue council approval for either of the other two options. The PBA fights back hard, stirring up public opinion against you, directly lobbying the council against your proposal, and filing an unfair labor practice charge with the state collective bargaining regulatory agency, alleging that your purported threat to contract out for law enforcement services is in fact a refusal to bargain in good faith. Several weeks later, the hearing officer decides that you have not violated the requirement for good-faith bargaining. In the meantime, PBA and public pressure have forced two council members to publicly come out against the contracting option. The county sheriff’s department becomes the subject of investigation by the State Attorney General’s office and the State Department of Law Enforcement, when it is alleged that sheriff’s deputies are guilty of widespread bribery and extortion efforts to protect drug dealers and gambling interests in the county. The PBA agrees to a contract that is essentially the same as the previous one, with a cost-of-living increase in pay and no changes in benefits. As a condition of ratification, the PBA insists privately to council members that you be fired. The council fires you at the same time it approves the collective bargaining agreement with the PBA.

Questions:
Is there anything else you could have done to handle this situation better, or were you simply a victim of bad timing and corruption in the county sheriff’s department?

At what stage might you have sought out union leadership to discuss a partnership approach to the bargaining? How easy do you think it would be to move from an adversarial approach to a partnership approach?