City leaders have testified in support of legislation to revise police discipline grievance arbitration. SB 5055, by Sen. Joe Nguyen (D–Seattle),
was heard on January 14 in the Senate Labor, Commerce & Tribal Affairs Committee. This bill requires the parties in police discipline disputes to use trained and specialized law enforcement personnel grievance arbitrators employed by the Public
Employment Relations Commission (PERC) and publish arbitration decisions through the commission on PERC’s website.
A recording of the hearing is available here.
Several city leaders joined AWC in testifying in support of the legislation, including Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs, Seattle City Councilor Lisa Herbold, and Seattle Community
Police Commissioner Colleen Echohawk. AWC thanks these city leaders for participating in the important conversations around police accountability and workplace discipline as an important step to rebuilding public confidence in law enforcement.
In addition to supporting the bill’s existing improvements to the arbitration process, city leaders made suggestions for how to improve the legislation. Suggestions include:
- Arbitrators should be limited to the record that the law enforcement agency considered when making their disciplinary decision. New information should not be considered unless it is crucial to the case and was reasonably available to the agency at the time of the disciplinary decision.
- Arbitrators should give deference to the disciplinary authority in police discipline cases.
- The standard of proof should be a preponderance of the evidence that the disciplinary action was for cause.
- In addition to published decisions, hearings should be recorded and made available to the public.