DETERMINANTS OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY BY POLICE UNIONS

Public employee unions have long been active in the municipal politica l process, but there have been few studies of the determinants of this activity. Using the most recent version of a national survey of munic ipal labor relations, a number of trends for police unions were discov ered. The decrease in political activity observed in the late 1960s an d through the 1970s appears to have ended. This study found particular ly large increases in candidate endorsements and financial contributio ns, with the only decline occurring in state-level lobbying. In terms of the determinants of the political activity by police unions, a numb er of factors proved significant. The most important included the perc entage of homeowners in a city, the existence of a bargaining agreemen t, and union size, all of which generally increased the level of polit ical activity by a police union.