Police bargaining,arbitration, and fringe benefits

Data from a national sample of 500 to 600 U.S. cities with over 25,000 in population indicated that the practice of police collective bargaining has a positive, strong association with fringe benefits (measured by city contributions for police retirement and insurance benefits per police officer). The availability of arbitration, however, seems to have little or no influence on the dollar amount of police fringes, and neither the current nor the prior use of arbitration (i.e., actually receiving an arbitration award) has any consistent association with police fringes. The results indicate that collective bargaining and regional location influence the level of police fringes more than do other variables. We are grateful to Steve Kawakami, Mark Phillips, Joe Schimansky, and Dick Williams for some excellent research assistance. We are also grateful to the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice for financially supporting this research. Such support does not mean that the Institute or Department necessarily agrees with our methods or conclusions.