So are you against all government unions? What about quasi-gov orgs like SEC? Or teachers? Just trying to understand where you fall on the “unions for me but not thee” scale
When the SEC and teachers are capable of using the authority of the State to take my life with qualified immunity for civil rights violations all while abusing overtime and other overpayment techniques and their unions go to bat for them, I will call for an end to their unions.
> When the SEC and teachers are capable of using the authority of the State to take my life with qualified immunity
Teachers are covered by QI just as much as cops, and there is much less past precedent on use of force by teachers. Since QI works on the principle of “the absence of precedent covering similar actors in similar circumstances and ruling it unlawful means you can't be held liable”, they probably are more able to do that covered by QI.
OTOH, they have less practical opportunity to apply force.
Yes, in theory, teachers are covered by QI, however, in practice 2 things are different:
1 is that there are extremely few cases of QI for teachers, QI is used primarily by police officers
2 is that the unions don't back teachers that come up on QI charges. They don't run clinics on how to use QI to jutify harming someone or other clinics like Killology.
> 1 is that there are extremely few cases of QI for teachers, QI is used primarily by police officers
To the extent that's true, it's because people don't sue teachers personally as a way of getting some largely symbolic measure of justice for things that are actually crimes but where public prosecutors won't prosecute, because teachers don't benefit from the same working relationship with prosecutors that police have.
> 2 is that the unions don't back teachers that come up on QI charges
There are no such things as QI charges, and unions do, in fact, back teachers sued for discretionary acts, the space where QI applies. Which is why education groups have raised concerns about the pressure to end QI.
1. there is no reason to be pedantic about the language around QI. We are not in court, so you're not impressing anyone with your "actually" non-sense. Any reasonable person can infer that I was talking about cases in which QI would be used as a justification to absolve the officer of responsability.
2. Your first rebuttal point reinforces my point, in practice there are very few cases that result in QI being used w.r.t. teachers.
3. I think most of us can agree that QI shouldn't apply to teachers or officers or any other State actor and is legal non-sense created by junk judicial interpretation.
> Teacher are covered by QI just as much as cops, and there is much less past precedent on use of force by teachers.
Are they? I think it's hard to answer that question precisely, since qualified immunity is not a law that has been passed but a collection of judicial interpretations. Wikipedia says that it applies to 'government officials', and, even if one takes Wikipedia as definitive, it's not clear to me that that should apply to schoolteachers. The only real way to test whether qualified immunity applies to teachers would be to have it be used in a court case. Has it been?
The modern interpretation of QI, while all the current news coverage comes from police officers, comes from a case in which White House advisors in the Nixon Administration were being sued over their involvement in a defense contracting dispute, and applies to government employees exercising any discretionary functions, categorically.
> The only real way to test whether qualified immunity applies to teachers would be to have it be used in a court case. Has it been?
Less opportunity to apply force but plenty to inflict lifelong damage.
Or at least massive opportunity cost and stunting or misdirection.
Teachers and police should be both way better paid and we should demand a lot more from both. These shouldn't be jobs you just get because they are easy(ish) to qualify for and have retirement and you can't ever get fired. We really need some of our best people in both.
These questions underly a particular argument that I don’t buy. We institute fairly hefty national standards on schools. I can go and look up the average scores for standardized tests for students for the high school I attended, and, afaik, essentially all schools in the US. Why can’t I do the same thing for police departments?
Somehow, police unions are able to avoid having similar accountability.
If you accept that a labour union represents collective bargaining of labour against capital, and you accept that government workers do not need to negotiate with capital, then you must conclude that government employees don't need to be unionised.
The one whose members consist of individuals with the ability to detain, assault and murder you, often with impunity via the thin veneer of "I was in fear for my life".
I am not op, and I don't get the sense that you are asking the question in good faith based on the snark, but will give you my thought:
Our need for accountability and oversight over jobs that involve the ability to use deadly force outweighs their need for collective bargaining power. The greater good, at least presently, is served by being able to scrutinize police conduct with less interference.
I don't think police unions created this problem, but I think they are helping perpetuate it.
(a) are first-responders whose central job is public safety,
(b) are regularly sent into situations where their life and safety is on the line (6 have been shot to death in the past two months), and
(c) regularly face violent and hateful prejudice as an identity, just for putting on the uniform,
it's hard to justify that they don't deserve advocacy from a group of people with shared experiences.
It doesn't mean that unions should always get their way or that unions should be officially recognized, but police can and should exercise their rights to collectively bargain and strike if necessary.
(a) This is a fantastic argument for why they should not be able to collectively bargain and strike. They are civil servants, not labor working for capital owners.
(b) You grossly overstate the danger of being a police officer. According to the Department of Labor, being a police officer is not in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the US. It is, in fact, slightly more dangerous than being an electrician, and significantly safer than driving a cab. (https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf)
(c) I think you are being hyperbolic. The intense criticism they are facing today is earned. Not because all, or even most officers are bad, but because they consistently protect the ones that are, and aggressively defend the worst among them.
They can have advocacy, but their ability to collectively bargain with us (our government is us) and constantly circle the wagons and protect their own is net harmful to our society.
My point is that this becomes an issue in every part of life when dealing with the government.
And yet, the same people arguing for abolishment of police also want to expand the government beyond anything it’s ever done. They give no thought to the unintended consequences instead crying “but think of the children”. I see I’m getting down voted heavily, so clearly my ideas aren’t valued here, but it’s kinda mind blowing that so many people here can hold these hypocritical ideas in their head at the same time.
> My point is that this becomes an issue in every part of life when dealing with the government.
What is "this" that covers universal healthcare, police, schools, environmental regulations, food safety, workplace safety etc?
Many people believe that there are parts of social life which are too important to entrust to privately-controlled, peofit-driven hands. The only alternative in our society is to entrust them to local, state or federal government. The reason why is that, unlike private entities, we the people actually have some amount of control over the government.
Now, when we see parts of government consistently escape any kind of control, like police or intelligence agencies, then we start demanding something to be done about it. If police unions are part of the problem, as it seems they are, then those also need to change, or be removed. Schools are not in any way near the same level of out-of-control as police have been shown to be.
People are downvoting you because you are clearly not arguing in good faith, using phrases like "think of the children," which is a phrase used nowhere near as often as certain groups claim it is, while they parody it to shut down opposing viewpoints in discussion.
That being said, I'd also like to point out that "abolish the police" isn't saying "remove police entirely." It is saying that police, in their current state, should not exist. It's saying that police not be the ones who handle someone having a psychotic episode, and that part of the money going towards police should fund trained healthcare professionals instead. That police shouldn't be handling the homelessness problem, and we could redirect some of their funding to create public housing instead of throwing them in jail over and over. We shouldn't have police handle truant students, and arresting them certainly shouldn't be the only option available if they continue to do so.
It comes down to the fact that police forces and unions have too much power. And of course that leads into the larger discussion of the fact that police can say "we thought this person was committing a crime" and steal everything in your car with almost no recourse to get it back. That police have incentives to make any given arrest at the end of their shift to accrue overtime, and that most police organizations have no limits on the amount they can accrue. That police forces are getting increasingly militarized even as violent crime is going down worldwide. Or that they can shoot and kill almost anyone and say "well I felt that my life was in danger" and that's the end of the discussion. And that if in the unlikely event they are fired, they still keep their pension and can be hired a precinct over with no repercussion. That there are no means for reasonable oversight of these organization to make sure they are acting in the public's best interest. That police unions actively fight to keep all of these policies in place instead of working to build trust in their organizations so that we don't have these problems in the first place.
It's not a discussion of "I only want the parts of the government that I like to have funding," it's an objective look at an arm of the government that has far more power than it should by pushing every existing law and statute to the limit while everyone looks the other way, and an objective view at what society-benefiting services we could fund (that would reduce the need for police in the first place) if we chose to fund them instead of massive police forces. If we had an education system where you had one teacher the entirety of your career, who had no oversight on the curriculum they taught, could assign grades at random based on how they liked each student, that was unable to be terminated, and if they did lost absolutely nothing, you can bet that we'd be here protesting that as well.
Just for the record, I draw the line at police unions as long as there isn't significant oversight in both policing and the union itself.
If their track record wasn't abysmal when it comes to abuse of power, I would be less likely to see a problem with police unions. However, that isn't the case, hence my opinion on the matter.
