Mayor Michelle Wu’s priorities include reducing “union release time,” when the city pays officers to attend collective bargaining and grievance sessions, and tightening the medical leave policy. JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
It’s a feat that eluded her predecessors.
Michelle Wu swept into office in 2021 promising to do what no Boston mayor has done in decades: force major reforms upon the change-resistant, scandal-scarredBoston Police Department, and make them last by negotiating sweeping change into new police union contracts.
But as Wu begins the second year of her first term, it’s becoming clear just how difficult that will be. The city’s largest police union is already trying to push contract talks off the bargaining table and into the hands of outside arbitrators, a move that has historically favored the unions. And police unions, no fans of Wu to begin with, are standing characteristically firm in their positions, as unwilling as ever to grant major concessions without getting something big back from the city.