After six months of virtual negotiations over its contract with the city, Portland’s union representing rank-and-file officers has asked to move the incomplete conversation into private mediation.
The announcement, made by Portland Police Association (PPA) Monday morning, isn’t an entirely unexpected move: State labor law allows parties engaged in contract negotiations to request mediation after 150 days of collective bargaining. PPA and the City of Portland reached that 150-day mark on June 12, after meeting a total of 11 times to hash out the future contract. Only half of those meetings have been made available for public viewing. All of the meetings conducted by a state-selected mediator will be closed to the public.
PPA Director Daryl Turner, a former Portland Police Bureau officer, said his team chose to request mediation out of concern that the city isn’t taking the union’s need seriously.
“Last year, [the PPA] moved quickly to provide the City of Portland with budget relief given the economic impact of COVID-19,” said Turner in a press release. “We have not seen the same sense of urgency in 2021 from the City to address the catastrophic recruiting and retention issues facing our police ranks.”
The union and city have clashed over police oversight policies, mandatory anti-bias training, and a new discipline guide for officers who break PPB’s rules of conduct. The two parties have so far passed “tentative agreements”—documents signaling their agreement on a contract change—on 30 of the contract’s 68 articles. The two sides aren’t required to pass tentative agreements on all 68 articles before wrapping up negotiations, but several discussions referring to currently untouched articles remain unresolved.
After the state selects a mediator, the city and the PPA must remain in mediation for at least 15 days. If the two parties cannot reach a mediated conclusion to the negations by that point, either side can claim an “impasse,” thus forcing the process into arbitration.
On Monday, Turner said the PPA’s bargaining team is looking forward to the mediation process resulting in a “mutually agreeable contract.”
“The City should understand the need to reach finality on a new contract,” said Turner. “Pressure breeds progress and results.”
The city isn’t thrilled by the decision. In a press statement shared later Monday morning, the city’s bargaining team wrote: “The City is disappointed that bargaining, including open bargaining, will no longer continue, as we believe the bargaining process was working well.”
The union and city have clashed over police oversight policies, mandatory anti-bias training, and a new discipline guide for officers who break PPB’s rules of conduct.
Well then, if the police refuse to include these in their contract – no contract. If the police refuse to change and simply want to double down on their violence and the harassment, harm, destruction, and murder of civilians, especially Black civilians, they can go. Please, in fact, do go.
No more allowing the PPD to get away with their bad behavior.
No more giving PPD more and more money, when they use and abuse their power and taxpayers end up footing the bill for all of it.
No more PPD period.
Get rid of every last one of them.
If we’re going to move forward in a society where there is not a constant clash of violence and abuse of power by so-called law enforcement – get rid of them. They are government sanctioned, taxpayer funded terrorists. Enough!
Portland can get rid of every last one of them and invest the obscene amount of money they spend on them and their terrorism to fund communities that are in desperate need of funding.
The PPD had proven it is nothing but a force within Oregon’s white supremacist movement. We don’t need them. And before people start crying about how we need the police – they don’t prevent crime (show up after it’s over or they commit it themselves), nor do they solve crime. They are armed to the teeth, believe they can do whatever they want, and getting rid of them entirely would improve the state of the state immensely.
Want law enforcement? Then demand they be watched and held to standards of conduct. Demand cops who kill (especially cops who murder Black people) get fired, prosecuted, and imprisoned. Cops who kill deserve to be stripped of their jobs and pensions and prosecuted. Cops who kill and a financial payout is made to the families of the people they kill, should be the ones to pay that financial payment, not the taxpayers.
Enough emboldening and financing these cops who are nothing but terrorists. They don’t want to be held accountable for anything then they can leave. Fire every last one of them. The city of Portland need not make any contractual agreement with a group of people who want to be able to do whatever they want, with no accountability, on the taxpayer dime.
Look at the shit show Portland has been in the last year. If law enforcement were of any use in any way, do you really think Portland would look the way it does? NOPE. The cops do nothing and then make you believe they are the ones needed to stop the destruction. THEY ARE THE DESTRUCTION. THEY ARE THE DISEASE. THEY ARE THE PROBLEM.
Kick them out and let the door hit them on their asses on the way out.