
It's Time to Bust Police Unions - resalisbury
https://reason.com/2020/06/03/its-time-to-bust-police-unions/
======
systemvoltage
I don't know where else to post about it, this thread seems the most relevant.

Regarding yesterday's Buffalo police department incident where one officer
pushed an elderly person who was then bleeding on the floor.

The police department put out a statement [1]: > "Our position is these
officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph
Gramaglia to clear the square," Evans said. "It doesn't specify clear the
square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I
don't know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell
backwards."

IMO - This idea of "I was just following" orders _needs_ to be eradicated.
That is a cop out (pardon the pun) and totally puts the responsibility towards
_no one_ because the superiors are not even at the scene. Every cop, every
officer, every law enforcement persons must not _blindly_ follow orders like
they're in the military. They must have some self restraint and put public
safety first.

I am sorry as this has nothing to do with Police unions, but I felt like
speaking up about this excuse of following orders from the superiors is
absolutely terrifying.

[1] [https://buffalonews.com/2020/06/05/57-members-of-buffalo-
pol...](https://buffalonews.com/2020/06/05/57-members-of-buffalo-police-riot-
response-team-resign/)

~~~
hrunt
Even in the military, "I was just following orders," is not a defense for
crimes committed. In the US military, you _must_ disobey orders if those
orders are unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would know
them to be unlawful. German soldiers had the same issue after WW2.

------
AnimalMuppet
Definitely. Police unions are a major obstacle to removing bad apples from the
police, and to changing police culture. And yet...

Management (either police chiefs or politicians) can push police into things
that are not safe for the police officers. There needs to be _somebody_ to
push back that's bigger than the individual officers.

~~~
Avicebron
I feel like this could end badly, like I feel about the rampant efforts I'm
hearing about to "defund the police". Yes, maybe less structural protection
and military grade hardware might help.

But conversely, non-unionized jobs can easily turn into mills for low skilled,
unmotivated people. If there is no nuance to this, are we going to end up with
a deteriorated police force scrounging for anyone willing to run into a fight
and start shooting. I think an over correction here would be very costly long
term. Once a union is gone, getting it back has historically
been..challenging.

~~~
adamsea
What’s the problem with defunding the police?

Take 3/4 of their budget. Put 1/4 in community development (so people might
actually be able to get jobs or a decent future) 1/4 in mental health, and 1/4
in community-based, nonviolent conflict de-escalation and resolution.

See what happens.

Or, you know, keep watching videos of cops shove 75-year old men onto the
concrete or murder unarmed black American citizens while their police buddies
stand by and twiddle their thumbs.

[edit: as recent video evidence conclusively shows, the police are _already_
full of people who are ready to start a fight and come in shooting. And police
unions are _enablers_ of that criminal activity.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
It's a utopian gamble contradicting every lesson of human history and culture
- namely that evil cannot be eradicated. The idea that social workers will
eradicate crime is so foolish, that I'm absolutely bewildered this is being
offered. By (what I can only assume) humanities majors! The irony!

~~~
RhysU
A dark thought: Posit that some fraction of all people (of all backgrounds)
are irreparably evil. Where can civilization best harness their skills to
minimize the harm to rest of humanity?

~~~
adamsea
Why even posit that to begin with, when we have plenty of science -
psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, etc - that are intensely
interested in human behavior?

We have actual data and reasonably useful models to draw on.

What you describe is the setting for a Young Adult fantasy series. Which is
fine, and interesting for a while, but not a good way to think about how we
would like our society to function.

Go read Hannah Arendt's "On Violence", if you haven't. Or "Eichmann in
Jerusalem."

It's the banality of evil that's the really unsettling thing.

------
Witeshadow
I don't think we should "bust unions", we need to pass laws that hold them
accountable and have consequences. Make disciplinary records permanent and on
a national registry. Many employees get "points" from getting to work late and
fired after too many points. Excessive force should be on this list for
police.

Make lying in police reports a crime that results in firing, make not
reporting on other cops a crime.

------
BMorearty
Absolutely right.

I believe in unions. But unions don't exist to protect and reinstate members
who have abused their power or committed crimes on the job. And that's what
police unions have a pattern of doing.

~~~
lliamander
This is true with all public sector unions. Regular labor unions have a
natural limitation in that if they push negotiations too far, they bankrupt
the corporation and now the workers are even worse off.

It's not even about negotiating pay: if the standards of workmanship aren't
high enough the company can't deliver the goods or they costs from cleaning up
the mistakes are too high.

There are no such natural limitations on the ability for public sector unions
to negotiate with the state.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
Not only that, the purpose of a private sector union is to negotiate with
capital. The capitalist has no duty to give the workers a fair deal. Whereas
the government in a democracy represents everybody, and public workers are a
large voting block. Having a union on top of that gives them undue and
disproportionate influence at the expense of, not corporate shareholders, but
the general public.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I don’t think this will actually happen. What I see happening is that any bill
that tries to get rid of police unions will get a Republican rider that also
gets rid of teacher’s unions. Teacher’s unions are a big part of the
Democratic coalition, so the Democrats will balk at passing it.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Then stop calling everyone else bootlickers when the left doesn't seem to be
able to stand up to unions. There's people's lives on the line. Teacher's
unions protect pedofiles.

------
dragontamer
Police deserve a union IMO. But we the public deserve to ignore the union when
they push for bad decisions, or otherwise are counterproductive.

Cutting the voice out of the Police would be a step too far. All workers
deserve a chance for assembly and collective action.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
There is a difference between "assembly and collective action" and a union.
You can get the former from a PAC.

The latter, for example, requires everyone to join as a condition of
employment. That's not a freedom, it's a coercion -- which can drive out good
officers (or teachers) when the union is protecting bad ones.

A union is also negotiating with ostensibly public representatives who owe
their election to its members. A PAC has only the leverage it gets through the
votes or donations of its members. A public sector union that gets a candidate
elected and then negotiates with them for its contract is self-dealing at the
expense of the public.

------
neonate
This is an interesting question because it cuts across the usual left/right
divide in a rare way. Union busting is a right-wing thing.

A similar issue is the prison guards' union (a major political influence in
California at least), which some people have been arguing for years has been a
major factor in the brutalization of prisons.

------
sacks2k
Unions, in general all suffer from the same problem with removing bad
employees and in this case, cops that can do harm.

It can be seen with police, automotive employees, and teachers.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
I find it ridiculous that the left idealizes them as these vital emancipatory
organizations when they (obviously) all seem to suffer from the same
drawbacks, corruption and abuse found in any other sufficiently large and
long-lived human organization.

------
foogazi
Why are unions being blamed here?

Is there a special law that provides immunity for union members ?

------
unsignedchar
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police-
un...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police-unions-
history-minneapolis-reform-george-floyd)

"Police unions have become increasingly rightwing as a backlash to the Obama
administration and Black Lives Matter — and that’s bad news for the cities
they police."

------
Simulacra
"Police are public servants granted enormous power over the citizenry. They
are tasked with protecting the public and serving their interests. Police
unions, in contrast, are tasked with protecting police and serving their
interests—even in direct contravention of serving the public. That distinction
makes them a barrier to reforms aimed at improving public safety and
increasing oversight of how law enforcement behaves. "

But the same could be said for many unions, such as public service employees,
doctors, nurses, airline pilots, etc.

~~~
happytoexplain
Luckily, none of the people you listed have to decide whether or not to beat
or murder me. You may make the same argument against other unions, but I do
not think that you may imply that the consequences are equivalent.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Teachers can and do abuse children from time to time.

