Politics and Power of the Police Union

The peculiarities of police politics may determine the future of the Christopher Commission report.

Most people think of police officers as a right-wing bunch, standing solidly in the prosecution’s corner and with little influence over liberal bodies like the Los Angeles City Council.

That’s because police organizations have lobbied in Sacramento against laws protecting the rights of the accused. Police political energy fueled the statewide campaigns that ousted Chief Justice Rose Bird and enacted the pro-prosecution “Victims Bill of Rights.”

But such support is only half the story. Cops have also shaped the law to protect the rights of the accused--if they happen to be police officers accused of brutality, theft, drug abuse, insubordination or other offenses. They have accomplished this through membership in powerful police unions, which have considerable political clout in city halls and the Capitol.

That is especially true in Los Angeles, where one of the strongest police labor organizations, thes Police Protective League, represents most of the city’s 8,300 officers in their dealings with the city.

Like any other union, the league lives by the small print of its contract. As the league sees it, hard-won employee rights are threatened by what the Christopher Commission is proposing.

Take the recommendation for periodic psychological testing. “We would have to negotiate that,” said Lt. George Aliano, the president of the league. What if a cop fails a test, and is shifted from a favorable assignment? The league would fight. Another psychologist would be called in. “We’d get into a battle of the doctors,” Aliano said.

And, such a change would have to be approved by the league and management before it becomes a part of city law.

Aliano could be found Monday in the league’s headquarters, a brown-brick fortress of a building located at 8th and San Pedro streets in one of the worst parts of Skid Row. A bad neighborhood, but a convenient location, near police headquarters and City Hall, where Aliano and other officers constantly fight their battles.

From this modest office, political and negotiating strategies have emerged which have resulted in a complex web of labor law.

Mandatory drug testing provides a telling example. Department brass wanted the officers to be tested. But that amounted to a change in the cops’ working conditions. So it had to be negotiated. After many talks, the league agreed to testing--but only if veteran cops were given an additional day off.

A state law, the 1978 “Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights,” backs up these local protections. Under the law, for example, the brass can’t even search officers’ lockers without their permission, or give them lie detector tests.

That this law was passed by a liberal Democratic Legislature and signed by a liberal Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, tells you a lot about the highly flexible nature of police union politics.

In Los Angeles, Aliano for years has blasted Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in labor matters. But when Gates came under fire in the King episode, Aliano and other league officers rode to his defense.

Aliano was as much a cop as a labor leader, his union salary paid by the Police Department. In two weeks, he’ll leave his union post to join the department’s administrative team, probably at police headquarters.

As you can see, political philosophy isn’t a big deal at the league. The league rewards liberal Democrats Ruth Galanter and Richard Alatorre with as many campaign contributions as it gives Republicans Hal Bernson and Joan Milke Flores.

To these pragmatic cops, the only test is “what have you done for us lately.”

In the next few weeks, we will see how this power works.

The first display of police rank-and-file power will be when the City Council begins deliberating on the Christopher Commission reforms.

Attention may be focused at first on the big issues, such as limiting the police chief’s term. But don’t ignore the league, nibbling away at the Christopher Commission report. Its lobbyists and council supporters will seize on issues such as psychological testing.

Rather than try to destroy the report in one blow, the league and its backers will chip away, section by section, tying up the debate in the muddy complexities of labor contracts.

And, if the recommendations are passed by the council, signed by the mayor and approved by the voters, the league will try to litigate objectionable passages to death.

Before this fight is over, the Police Protective League, and its peculiarly pragmatic brand of politics, may become the decisive factor in determining whether the Christopher Commission recommendations become law.