"Effects bargaining" has hindered the Police Department's mission to protect officers and to protect the lives and property of County residents

• The Police Department’s revised policy on “Use of Force” -- important to protecting the public and officers alike – was sent to the Police Union for their “approval” on June 27, 2008. More than four years later, Chief Manger is still waiting. In all, 15 policies are awaiting union “approval” -- 12 of them for over two years.
• With effects bargaining, the FOP contested and stalled for nearly a decade the placement of video cameras in police cruisers, demanding to negotiate the “effects” of accountability of officers for what might be recorded. Keep in mind that, in the overwhelming number of cases, cameras in cruisers support officers’ actions in cases where questions are raised.
• Effects bargaining meant that the Police Chief and command staff could not communicate with officers by e-mail because union leadership would not agree that officers should be expected to use their County e-mail account – or check it. It took months to implement that simple, common sense step.
• When Chief Manger sought to quickly shift more officers to Silver Spring in the summer of 2011 to meet a deteriorating crime situation in downtown Silver Spring and the Route 29 corridor, he had to bargain this operational shift with the Police Union – even though officers had already volunteered to do the duty.
• Chief Manger can’t decide how to best distribute new public safety equipment – the Police Union demanded to bargain over it.
• The Police Chief wanted to require that officers use yellow “Police” armbands in situations where officers in civilian clothes responded off-duty to incidents (such as the Discovery standoff ) – in order to protect officers from “friendly fire” and make clear to civilians who were the police in a given situation. Using effects bargaining, the Union objected.
• Even emergency management issues proposed by the Chief are subject to being bargained with Police Union leaders.
• Effects bargaining hinders the department from moving into the 21^st century -- taking advantage of innovations in public safety technological and program advances - because the FOP can demand to bargain anything or can delay and not bargain until the next full term contract -- which can be up to three years.
• This is about the ability of the Police Chief to manage the Montgomery County Police Department in the most efficient and productive way -- respecting collective bargaining on basic employee issues but not having to submit every management decision to the Union leadership.  

 Produced by Montgomery County Office of Public Information