Imagine this: An employee makes a crucial error, one that either costs the company a lot of money or even puts another person’s life in jeopardy. The company fires the employee, only to have an arbitrator reinstate the worker.
It’s not a hypothetical. It’s happening to the Cincinnati Police Department.
Since 1998, the city has fired 35 police officers for wrongdoing. The firings stuck 16 times, only because 11 cases involved criminal charges and five officers didn’t appeal.
The other 19 cases ended with a settlement or an arbitrator’s ruling that returned the fired officers to the job. Independent arbitrators ruled against the city and reinstated fired officers 16 of 18 times in 10 years, according to an investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Police blame the arbitrators, saying they’re reluctant to end an officer’s career and that they often compare old cases that were handled under a different disciplinary code with recent ones.
The police union says arbitration in cases of firing or severe discipline protect officers from the department’s uneven or excessive discipline.
Failed to provide medical assistance; promoted to sergeant
Officer Patrick Caton was fired for his involvement in a case in which a man died after police arrested and restrained him. The city fired Caton, and a federal judge found he and other officers failed to provide medical assistance to the man they had arrested, despite his obvious breathing problems.
Caton was later acquitted of assault charges. An arbitrator reduced his dismissal to a five-day suspension, concluding the mistakes he made weren’t serious enough to justify his firing.
He was promoted to sergeant just this year after scoring well on a civil service exam.
The family of the man who died in custody won a $6.5 million settlement, the largest in city history, after suing over the way Caton and other officers handled the man’s arrest.
Other officers who have returned to work include two who had sex with a drunken woman while on duty, one accused of taunting a suspect after shooting her with a Taser, and one who threw an Alzheimer’s patient to the floor, breaking his ribs, lacerating his liver and puncturing a lung.
The situation in Cincinnati isn’t likely to change, according to the newspaper’s analysis. Arbitration has been included in the police union contract for the last 20 years.
Have you faced a situation involving arbitration that went poorly? Or, have you had good success with arbitration? Let us know about your experiences.
