U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Police Labor-Management Relations (Vol. II): A Guide for Implementing Change, Making Reforms, and Handling Crises for Managers and Union Leaders

NCJ Number
215875
Author(s)
Michael J. Polzin; Ronald G. DeLord
Date Published
October 2006
Length
74 pages
Annotation
This guide, the second volume in a two-part series, presents advice to police union leaders and police management on how to handle a crisis situation and implement change and reforms cooperatively within an agency.
Abstract
The main goal of the guide is to illustrate how police union and management leaders can develop a cooperative labor-management effort within their own departments. Chapter 1 focuses on how to begin the informal processes of building a cooperative police-union management relationship, which relies on cultivating the four tiers of a principled relationship: (1) communication; (2) cooperation; (3) respect; and (4) trust. Chapter 2 turns to a discussion of the formal process of building joint police labor-management relations. Chapter 2 discusses how a police-union management partnership is typically initiated and then focuses on how to create the charter that formalizes the agreement between union and management. The charter creates a structure that specifies what the parties agree to do together and the manner in which they agree to do it. Chapter 2 also describes how to develop an agenda for the working relationship that will guide the union-management efforts. A series of tasks are presented that will help facilitate conversations about the goal of the partnership. Chapter 3 outlines an interest-based, problem-solving method that police union-management teams can use during their planning process. The two key goals of the interest-based labor-management process are: (1) to achieve a high quality and widely accepted outcome and (2) to maintain or improve the relationship between the police union and management. Chapter 4 presents three simulated real-life cases so that union-management teams can practice applying the interest-based, problem-solving method to a range of issues. The three cases involve a crisis situation, an organizational reform effort, and a department change brought about by a grant award. Worksheets and recommendations for applying the method are provided.