The Commission on Industrial Relations and its role in the Omaha Police contract
by Anuska Dhar
Protestors gathered outside of OPD headquarters last month just days before city council voted on the police union contract, demanding the release of body cam footage in the death of Kenneth Jones. Photo credit: Emily Chen-Newton
The Omaha City Council approved a new five-year police union contract at a meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 24. Under this agreement, officers will receive an average annual wage increase of 2.9 percent over the next five years and a paid holiday to recognize Juneteenth, as outlined by KETV.
While some additions to this new contract are set out to increase accountability, many opponents of the contract felt these changes were not enough within the context of discussions of police brutality in 2020. Primarily the opposition is to the increased pay and the use of arbitration whereby police officers can appeal to get their job back after being terminated.
So, what’s the problem with the city council saying no to a contract that includes a pay raise and arbitration? Well, that’s where the Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR) comes in. The CIR is a state agency that resolves disputes between the city and public unions that cannot be resolved between themselves during the negotiating process.
The CIR came into existence because of this thing called right-to-work laws, which effectively ban unions from striking. Nebraska is one of 28 right-to-work states, and as a result, they introduced the CIR to protect public unions in the face of these laws. The CIR plays a major role in managing working conditions like wages and arbitration. The only factors the CIR cannot weigh in on are pensions and employee health insurance plans.
In an interview with NOISE, Councilman Ben Gray explained that if the city council had said no to the contract, the police would have the right to file a complaint saying this was unfair labor practice and could demonstrate that the council had not bargained in good faith. A complaint would ultimately land the contract in the hands of the CIR, who would then have the final say.
Councilman Gray said that it hasn’t been advantageous or successful for the city council in the past to get the CIR involved, “When you go to the commission, you don’t know what they’re going to do, and you don’t know what it’s going to cost...nor do you know when they’re going to rule. They could hear a case tomorrow that won’t get a ruling until May.”
In this case, the CIR would look at the prevailing wages and benefits of police officers in an array of 5 or more cities with similar size populations to Omaha, and come up with an average pay. As Senator Steve Lathrope described in an interview with NOISE, these numbers would be “Nebraska-tized” and adjusted for the cost of living in Omaha, which is normally lower than those of other states. The city and public unions like the Omaha Police Officers Association usually have an idea of that average pay when negotiating, so while the police may try to ask for a bit more, or the city council could ask for less, there’s no point in suggesting something that doesn’t align with the average pay for other similar cities; which the CIR will use as its comparison numbers.
As Senator Steve Lathrop explained in response to constituents protesting the contract, if the city council turns it down for political reasons, ultimately the CIR won’t take that into consideration. As stewards of taxpayer dollars, he said the council should be guided by the question of whether they can negotiate a contract in which these public employees would get at or less than what they would if they went to the CIR, because getting the CIR involved is an expensive process that the city has to pay for.
In this case then, he agreed that for constituents expressing opposition to the contract, it was an issue of timing. While the public may not have been aware of prior negotiations, they needed to get involved as early on in the process as possible, before the council’s decision weighed heavily on the potential introduction of the CIR. The CIR is an entity that reinforces prevailing wages by design, so disrupting the status quo with them involved is nearly impossible.
Those looking to defund the police can talk to their city representatives about cutting the budget for the police, which the city council and the mayor work through independent of the CIR process. Senator Lathrop explained, “If you’re saying this year, we want to defund the police and cut their budget in half, the budget is independent of what we pay each of those individuals. If they cut the budget in half, and the value of the prevailing wages and benefits is $40 an hour, then the answer is you still have to cut half the police. You don’t cut the pay of the police.”
If you’d like to call or email your city council-member, you can find your representative’s contact information here. And for more information about the history and practice of “Right-to-Work” States and Laws, explore the links below:
https://nrtw.org/a-brief-history-of-the-foundation
https://www.ilwu.org/the-history-of-right-to-work/