Police Officer Discipline and Arbitration: The Issue of Conduct Unbecoming

Bohlander, George W.

doi:10.2190/kma3-yrlr-u8gx-rmcl

Cited by 2 publications

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“…The existence of multiple grievants or issues of off-the-job behavior had impacts on other case characteristics or case outcomes. Bohlander (1998) studied the issues in various work infractions committed by police officers. Among his results are that conduct unbecoming incidents comprise a very large number of police force discipline cases.…”

Section: Existing Research On Police Disciplinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The existing literature and descriptions of practice leads this researcher to believe that the following lead to case outcome differences: (1) the occupational category of police (LaVan, 1990(LaVan, , 1993 (2) case characteristics, such as offduty behavior, presence of a third party (Mesch, 1995); (3) the adherence of the arbitrator to the contract and due process (W. J. Gershenfeld & G. Gershenfeld, 2000); and (4) the behavior of management in the discipline process (Blancero & Bohlander, 1995;Bohlander, 1994Bohlander, , 1998. The present study draws heavily on the previous work of Bohlander who drew the following conclusions: the following five factors account for most of the reasons why arbitrators overturn managerial discipline decisions of public sector employees: 1. a lack of evidence, 2. mitigating circumstances, 3. procedural errors in case handling, 4. overly harsh punishment for rule infraction, and 5. management partly at fault.…”

Section: Rationale For the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Public Sector Employee Discipline: Comparing Police to Other Public Sector Employees

LaVan

2007

Employ Respons Rights J

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This study compares the disciplinary process for police vs. nonpolice public employees. A random sample of 200 cases was drawn from the 806 public sector discipline cases published in volumes 111-118 of Labor Arbitration Reports. Case characteristics, classification of conduct unbecoming, proposed discipline, arbitrator behavior, reasons for reversing management's penalty other than conduct unbecoming, procedural outcomes and findings were analyzed. The frequency of the finding for the employer was actually higher for police than for the nonpolice cases. Managerial actions that resulted in reversing the disciplinary penalty were not as suggested by the literature. Multivariate analyses of the case characteristics led to the conclusion that police discipline may have been distinctive from nonpolice public employee discipline in the past, but is no longer so distinctive.The contention exists that police force discipline is distinctive and more lenient that other discipline, especially that of other public sector employee. The purpose of this research is to explore that contention by analyzing discipline cases that have gone to arbitration. Arbitration is a means of settling a dispute between two parties in which the matter is decided by a third party chosen by the two disputants. The decision of the third party is binding. It is used for settling employment disputes, among other types, on subjects delineated in an employment contract. It is usually the last step in the grievance process.

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Section: Existing Research On Police Disciplinementioning

confidence: 99%