NCJ Number
81917
Date Published
1980
Length
169 pages
Annotation
Findings are presented from a study that examined the impact of police unionism on wage determination.
Abstract
Using the 1975 Uniform Crime Report, all U.S. cities with 100 or more law enforcement employees, both sworn and civilian, were identified and surveyed. A total of 255 agencies were used in the study, of which 166 were union (65 percent) and 89 (35 percent) were nonunion. The three related dependent variables were minimum level (entrance) patrol officer salaries, maximum level patrol officer salaries, and the average of the two. The independent variables used were unionization and nonunionization; crime rate; population density; population; income inequality; number of full-time sworn police employees per 1,000 population; average annual earnings of manufacturing production workers; the number of retail, service, and wholesale establishments per 1,000 population; monopsony power; government type; geographic region; and LEAA regions. Results show that unionized police departments do exhibit higher minimum, maximum, and average salaries than do nonunion agencies for the population under study; however, unionization is not a strong predictor of wages. Geographic region is the strongest predictor due to a unique combination of several independent variables, one of which is unionization. Results also indicate that income inequality, population density, crime rate, and monopsony contribute significantly to variance in salaries. Tabular data, 10 footnotes, and a bibliography of 56 listings are provided. The questionnaire is appended. For other documents from the project of which this study is a part, see NCJ 81727, NCJ 81914-16, and NCJ 81918-21.