This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1316386
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1316386
If ever a yellow dog there was, it’s this one biting the good working people.
When was the last time the Police sided with labor? There are ought to be a single instance of a labor dispute where cops went and beat up the owners instead of the workers. Huh? None? I guess that is because cops are not meant to protect the population but to enforce the policies of the ruling class.
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Police officers are very much workers in need of collective representation. That their unions have a role to play in preventing police accountability and so forth is a real problem, but kicking them out of organized labor isn’t a real solution.
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I agree. We’re talking about blue collar women and men who don’t make a lot of money. A lot of this is the same kind of argumentation that has been used against the labor movement writ large: it’s infiltrated by corrupt bosses and mafia thugs, and doesn’t serve the interests of real workers. What we need are serious laws that guarantee police accountability, that can’t be overridden or avoided through union contracts.
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Great piece. And while It’s currently very topical to view all subjects through the lens of racism as this piece does (and I’m not belittling that, its good) when it comes to police ‘unions’ being part of the labor movement the problem is much more basic than racism.
Having professional strikebreakers in the unions — when unionists face repression from cops and guards in every strike — is a recipe for defeat.
a role integral to the profit system, in which racial oppression has always been key to capitalists’ wealth and power. There is no reform or code, no set of rules or oversight that can change the basic role of the police, and they don’t belong in our unions in any form.
That right there! That’s the problem. Even if police magically removed all racial bias overnight, they still fundamentally work against labor. They do not stand with other workers. They do not join strikes, they bust them. Hell they do not even protect their own workers from intimidation from it’s own members. All the police ‘unions’ actually seem to do is fight to protect their ability to use whatever force they want on other union members.
It’s a disgrace any labor movement is affiliated with them and shows how much of our current labor movement leadership may not be as strong willed as we need.
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Oust all police unions from organized labor unions.
Police commit more crime in act of policing than criminals.
Police make all types of excuses for excessive use of force & write fictional reports absolving themselves of wrong. They harass & kill citizenry over minor violations of law from bogus traffic stops to jaywalking not to mention shoving 75 year olds to pavement unprovoked.
These flagrant violations of citizen rights are then vigorously defended by police unions. Kick all police unions out.
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Excellent article, Becca. Love all the specifics. This is the central issue in accountability. The FOP in Chicago, where I am, is run by a Trump fanatic, a complete nut-job. Look him up: John Catanzara. No hope for real reform with the Chicago FOP in the mix.
Here’s another article about police unions from The New Yorker from superb long-time NYT labor reporter (do they still have those?), Steve Greenhouse: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-police-union-power-helped-increase-abuses.
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My father was a union man all his life and he believed every union but his was filled socialists, democrats and other evil-doers…
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From somebody on the outside it looks like the police unions are headed by arrogant bullies who’s sole purpose is to protect bad cops. Since Police are given the right to use deadly force, normal worker protections have to be adjusted to reflect that reality.
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I agree. If anything, it’s counterproductive. A better solution would be to make their status provisional until certain benchmarks are met and sustained. I’ll almost never agree that ostracization is the answer to any societal problem, if the goal is to change behavior and not just condemn it.
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Policemen negotiating for wages and benefits through unions is perfectly good. The issue is the unions have become the vehicle through which the police shield themselves from liability and accountability. Those types of disciplinary matters should be removed from the scope of union contracts. The matters should be subject to actual proceedings with oversight by elected officials. In addition, where killings of persons in custody are concerned, it should just be automatic that the local DAs do not handle those cases. They should be handled by the State AG or an independent prosecutor.
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This. And perhaps even some working-conditions issues. Although current police unions don’t always prevent someone who annoys brass or friend-of-brass from being assigned to the worst beats in the worst neighborhoods, you do need some entity whose job is to do that kind of thing. It’s the impunity and the paranoia that have to go.
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It is stretch to claim that police departments have their roots in slave patrols. The first police department was founded in Boston in 1838.
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There’s a reason right wing talking points comdemn all unions except police unions.
You never hear a conservative start gripping about police unions after they’re done gripping about teacher unions.
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One of the horrifying truths about challenging police unions is that police will absolutely retaliate on any individual who dares to publicly speak out against cops. This includes stalking, harassing, falsely arresting, banning from calls for service, and ultimately murdering someone who dares to stand up to police and/or its union. Cops are local and they know exactly where every citizen lives. They have access to highly personal information on any individual. They can make life a living hell for anyone who challenges police power. The movie “Serpico” was essentially a documentary, not a fiction. Cops are extraordinarily dangerous factors in our communities and they will make sure to keep a grip on power and their public salaries.
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So now some progressives want to be aligned with Calvin Coolidge? I think police unions have a legitimate role to play and not just for wages and benefits. Unions of all kinds protect their fair share of malingerers, crooks, and incompetents but that’s part of the price of the duty of fair representation. Police union leaders seem to be a reactionary bunch but they aren’t the only unions led by loudmouths, crooks, or bully boys. I agree that a cop’s ability to use deadly force makes protections of bad cops a particularly sensitive point and I wish that they weren’t led by some of the knuckle drivers we hear about. But fair representation is also particularly important in such a politically charged atmosphere since they do, after all have a pretty tough and dangerous job. It’s also important to bear in mind that due process should apply to everyone, even cops.
The posted article was clearly intended to tar all police in general and all police unions in particular with every bad thing possible police related that ever happened in the entire history of the country. I don’t think this kind of worst-hits screed amounts to useful argument.
Typical non-police unions in the US have a record of a pretty gross levels of criminal corruption and racism themselves (along with all the good they were able to do when in the legal and economic position to do it), although police unions are on a whole different level and in a far more powerful position with a lot broader area of influence. When guys like Scott Walker and his Republican co-conspirators remove power from unions and pass various anti-unionization laws somehow police unions get left out - because they just aren’t the same thing. And of course they are some of Trump’s good guys with the guns.
It would benefit the other unions to remove the $$$$ sources of their historic corruption by law. And more so with police unions, with far broader reforms.
And I’m totally pro-union and made it a point to include union history and their role in the economy in high school US History economics and classes I taught.
I was just looking up the particulars of the disgusting time the NYPD turned their backs on Mayor deBlasio. A good summary, and in a not even lefty publication:
A key passage:
“I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face,” de Blasio said. “A good young man, law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”
This is the kind of thing that the police and police union heads like the jerk in charge in NYC (one of many) can’t abide. And that was six years ago.
Police have historically been the guys who bust the heads of striking workers. Their inclusion in the union movement has always been problematic.
In addition, where killings of persons in custody are concerned, it should just be automatic that the local DAs do not handle those cases. They should be handled by the State AG or an independent prosecutor.
This^
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