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In a press conference Feb. 4, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said he would immediately implement half of the 29 recommendations from his police accountability panel — the easier, less forceful half, essentially, what is within his power to order without asking the police union’s permission.
The mayor appointed the 11-member citizens panel last June in the wake of NAACP complaints that the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA), the police unit that investigates citizen complaints, is weak and fails to stop officer misconduct. Of the recommendations made by the panel Jan. 29, Nickels said that the Office of Civil Rights will provide citizens with advocates to help them through the police complaint process. The police chief is also to appoint an ethics officer and respond in writing if he rejects any of the OPA’s recommendations — with the OPA auditor to track the handling of all recommendations, including the panel’s.
In addition, the mayor is giving the OPA director control of her own budget, but not the ability to select her own staff — one of the critical items that the mayor says he will have to ask the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild to approve. Others are the panel’s call to expand the OPA auditor’s role in tracking cases and to allow difficult complaint investigations to exceed 180 days — the current limit in the union contract.
According to the mayor, a law the City Council passed last year requiring the police chief to file a written report if he fails to follow the OPA’s advice on disciplining an officer is also subject to the guild’s approval. “I never predict,” the mayor said of getting to yes with the union, but “it’s my hope it will not take long to resolve.”
Teamsters fighting Seattle Times
Seattle’s Teamsters have fought outsourcing before, but the battle that 75 drivers and mechanics are currently waging with The Seattle Times Co. is getting ugly enough that the workers could strike when their contract expires Feb. 29.
That’s the day the Times has told the workers they’ll be laid off, with their jobs to be outsourced to Penske Logistics. The Times, which operates business and circulation functions for itself and the Post-Intelligencer under a joint operating agreement, informed Locals 174 and 763 of the layoffs in a Jan. 15 layoff notice that the Teamsters say is bogus — the state-mandated notices, the union says, are required 60 days in advance of layoffs.
The Teamsters are trying to negotiate with the Times and Penske to maintain the jobs at the same wages, but, on Jan. 24, the Times filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the Teamsters are acting in bad faith. The Teamsters have filed a countercharge and, if push comes to shove, says Patty Warren, senior business agent for Local 174’s 68 Times drivers, a walkout is possible come Feb. 29 when the union’s contract and its no-strike clause expire.
“One of our primary issues right now is that the proposal from Penske would mean a wage cut for most of our members,” Warren says. “We just took a year’s wage freeze after the [Seattle Times’] fight with the P-I. They used that time to figure out a way to get rid of us.” |
