Pensees

"If labor laws and union contracts do not change the balance of power, nothing else will change." I wrote those words on November 17, 2020 in a post about police reform.  I was not optimistic. Such a change takes a LOT of effort to overcome entrenched stake holders (read:  Police Union).  Much to my surprise, there is already one example of overcoming the Police Union's strangle hold on discipline and transparency. It seems the Hawaii legislature passed Act 47, a bill to undo the requirement to keep police discipline records confidential.  The police union is fighting Act 47 with all the resources it can muster: "The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers responded by filing several legal challenges in all the counties arguing that Act 47 should be declared unconstitutional because it infringed on officers’ privacy rights and violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement, which includes numerous confidentiality provisions meant to keep officer miscond...

I was born in Rochester NY.  It's the 3rd largest city in New York, and parts of it are as gritty and forbidding as some of the streets of New York City.  It used to be a thriving city, with Xerox and Kodak as major employers.  Kodak's photo business has collapsed, and Xerox has been downsizing for years.  I don't have many ties to Rochester anymore, but an item popped up that I had to share. A white police officer shot a black man : "Silvon Simmons was shot three times in an upstate New York city. Then he was accused of trying to kill the cop who fired at him. His story is a study in the kinds of police practices that have sparked protests across America – and it shows the enormous challenge cities face when trying to enact change." "By the time Officer Joseph Ferrigno shot a Black man from behind, court records show, the Rochester cop had drawn at least 23 misconduct complaints in nearly nine years on the force." "Ferrigno fired four shots, hittin...