Are police union bosses in California bullies? Judging by the ugly tone of the “playbook” used by the Upland law firm, which represents 120 police union locals across the Golden State in contract negotiations, many of them are.
In a contribution to Reason Magazine’s Hit & Run blog last week (see the link below), Ed Krayewski quoted an apparently characteristic passage from the Upland “playbook” text:
The association [i.e., union hierarchy] should be like a quiet giant in the position of “do as I ask and don’t [expletive] me off.”
Is this only nasty bluster? Evidently not. One evening last August, Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer, who at the time was still a councilman, opened his door to find that someone had called the police to report him for DUI. As Righeimer was able quickly to establish, he hadn’t been drinking and the tip was totally bogus. And it turns out the tip was made by a private investigator for the Upland firm just a few hours after Righeimer had criticized the firm and police union bosses in a public meeting. Logically enough, Righeimer doesn’t believe the Upland investigator was acting on his own initiative.
This appalling story is just another example of why legislators and other public officials should never endow government union bosses with monopoly-bargaining privileges — privileges that are routinely abused. In the latest development, Righeimer is suing Costa Mesa Police Association union bosses and the Upland firm for intimidation and harassment. The “playbook” is part of his evidence that police union kingpins were behind the phony DUI accusation against him:
The playback calls for work slowdowns, for mobbing council meetings with calls for higher police funding, for scaring neighborhoods about crime problems by going to as many houses as possible looking for suspects for minor crimes. It calls for putting the pressure on officials, gaining their loyalty and then moving on to the “next victim.” This treatment of Righeimer takes a page out of the book.
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