Police union leadership says oversight lawsuit further stalls labor contract negotiations

After nearly a year without a police labor contract, city leadership has signaled its hope for – and taken steps toward – a new agreement in early 2024. But incoming Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock says recent developments, including a recently filed lawsuit, have raised questions that need answering before the union will return to the negotiation table. 

“There are a lot of unknowns out there,” Bullock, a senior police officer with the Austin Police Department, told the Austin Monitor on Thursday. 

The last police contract expired in March. Without a successive contract in place, City Council preemptively approved a one-year ordinance preserving officer pay and benefits, which Mayor Kirk Watson committed to renewing in a recent edition of his Watson Wire newsletter. 

Watson also touted a Dec. 4 agreement between the city and the Travis County district attorney to drop charges against 17 of the 21 Austin police officers indicted for use of excessive force during the May 2020 protests against racial injustice and police brutality.

“One reason we pursued this agreement with the DA was to help us get unstuck,” Watson wrote with regard to the contract negotiations. “We’re trying to rebuild mutual respect and trust.” 

Bullock is similarly encouraged by these developments. But he says the bigger hurdle is the Austin Police Oversight Act, which voters overwhelmingly approved in May. The act directs the city to expand the authority of the Office of Police Oversight in future labor contracts, among other provisions. 

“It’s something that we are monitoring to make sure that it doesn’t go outside what we believe are the bounds of state law,” Bullock said. 

Meanwhile, the city’s slow and piecemeal implementation of the Austin Police Oversight Act has rankled the Public Safety Commission, whose members recently criticized staff for shielding confidential personnel records from the Office of Police Oversight. Equity Action, which spearheaded the ballot proposition, sued the city earlier this month for its failure to implement the act. 

Bullock says the implementation process should feature in future contract negotiations but that the negotiations won’t be fruitful until the lawsuit plays out.

“We’re just not going to be able to sit down and have this discussion until we know what a court rules,” he said. “So our biggest priority is making sure that officers don’t lose their pay and benefits, which will only further exacerbate our problems with recruiting and retaining officers.”

Attrition is a long-standing challenge for the Austin Police Department, which continues to reform its training academy, and for other police departments around the country. It’s also a priority for Bullock, who assumes the union presidency on Jan. 1.

“Officers at our all-time-low staffing numbers … are tired and their morale is low, and that is a huge challenge for us,” he said. 

Bullock attributes the shortages to the “political climate in Travis County,” pointing to Council’s pursuit of a one-year contract extension – rather than the four-year tentative agreement with the union – earlier this year to allow voters to weigh in on the issue of oversight. (The union refused to return to negotiate a short-term agreement.) He also mentioned Council’s 2017 rejection of a previous tentative agreement and the more recent indictment of several officers related to excessive use of force.

In response, Bullock plans to ramp up the Austin Police Association’s communication with its members and with the public. The union previously faced criticism for funding a political action committee that mounted a failed ballot proposition to compete with the Austin Police Oversight Act with the aim of weakening oversight.

“I truly believe that all we need to do is speak the truth, because I think the truth represents what we’re dealing with,” he said of the shortages.

Photo by Highway Patrol Images courtesy of CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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