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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Crime State Employment Commission Rules Against Seattle's Conservative Cop Union

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:19 PM

Responding to a 2011 labor complaint filed by Seattle's conservative cop union, today a hearing examiner for the state's Public Employment Relations Commission confirmed that City Attorney Pete Holmes had the authority to terminate a pricey, private contract that named Stafford Frey Cooper the exclusive legal counsel for Seattle cops.

The decision amounts to a stately "go fuck yourself" for the Seattle Police Officer's Guild (SPOG).

Holmes vowed to sever the decades-long contract and move the bulk of legal defense for police officers in-house during his 2009 run for City Attorney. But when Holmes made good on his word and terminated the contract, SPOG responded by filing a labor complaint with the state.

“I am gratified that the PERC examiner upheld my decision to bring much of the police action work in-house,” Holmes said in a statement released today. “The driving force behind the change was, and remains, the city’s austere budget climate. The city is now playing a much more supportive role in policy by having a closer working relationship with the individual officers and the department.”

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First off, I love unions. I'm in a public employee's union. I believe all workers for any big institution should be in a union. Having said that, I get a warm fuzzy feeling whenever SPOG loses. Conservative politics aside, their total arrogance gives my union and the other public unions a bad name. Glad to see once and awhile they have to live in the real world like the rest of us.

Posted by hifiandrew on December 5, 2012 at 12:57 PM

Didn't Stafford collapse anyway?

Posted by Mugwumpt on December 5, 2012 at 1:10 PM

@2, yes, and one of their partners was arrested for serial rape.
http://mynorthwest.com/11/1310560/From-s…

Posted by gloomy gus on December 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM

Quite telling that SPOG ferverntly wants to be represented by a Rapo.

Posted by Lew Siffer on December 5, 2012 at 1:23 PM

I love the tic of appending the "conservative" epithet to "cop union". The cognitive dissonance of being anti-(cop) union must burn.

If the Boeing Machinists Union were fighting to keep its outside counsel, or any perk, you'd be giving them blowjobs every day on this blog and every week in your paper. There's nothing "conservative" about a union doing everything it can to help its membership. It's the point of a union.

I think the problem is that nobody at the Stranger is in a union, so their grasp of the concept is purely hypothetical.

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

on December 5, 2012 at 2:13 PM

LOL. I love it when SPOG loses anything. Couldn't have happened to a better bunch of assholes.

And just when I was starting to get over my November schadenfreude.

Posted by pfffter on December 5, 2012 at 2:15 PM

@5 This is the same union that puts out newsletters about how much they like beating hippies. They want this title, it's not something they'd protest, they wear it on their badges with them most of the time.

Posted by watchout5