Since the death of George Floyd sparked a wave of national protests, at least 42 of the 50 largest cities in the country have adopted new rules aimed at curbing abuses by the police, according to a tally by Samuel Walker, an expert on police accountability who is affiliated with the University of Nebraska Omaha.

From May through August, 15 cities banned chokeholds. A dozen passed "duty-to-intervene" statutes, requiring police officers to act if they see a fellow officer endanger a civilian. Still others banned so-called "no knock" warrants or changed policies related to the use of force.

Those reforms are important in and of themselves, and they also serve as a reminder of the power of collective action to influence new policies. Yet this list's potential to create real change will be seriously limited unless city leaders and state lawmakers take on an entrenched barrier to reform: labor arbitrators. These are the men and women who routinely reinstate abusive officers who have been fired for misconduct.

Labor arbitrators have ordered police chiefs to rehire officers fired for deeds as outrageous as sexually assaulting a teenager in a patrol car, driving the getaway car in a murder and fatally shooting an unarmed driver, according to a 2017 investigation by the Washington Post.

Police officers are not like other workers. They carry guns and have the ability to deprive members of the public of life and liberty. A labor arbitration process that prioritizes the rights of individual officers over the community's right to freedom from abusive police officers demands reform.

From an editorial in the New York Times