The Nation: Police Unions Don’t Serve the People. Can the Labor Movement Force Them To?

[Omaha Steve]

Police officers turn their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at the funeral of NYPD officer Rafael Ramos. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

http://www.thenation.com/blog/194537/police-unions-dont-serve-people-can-labor-movement-force-them

Michelle Chen on January 9, 2015 - 1:33 PM ET

Gotham’s thin blue wall is fracturing from all sides. In recent months, New York City has been rocked first by protests over police brutality, then by harsh tensions in the wake of two police slayings, and now an apparent unofficial “job action” by the police. Despite denial from union brass, there has been a steep drop in police activity, summonses down roughly 90 percent and more serious arrests declining by over 50 percent, compared to the previous year.

If this is indeed a coordinated rulebook labor action, it may prove oddly popular with the public: as long as their everyday lives aren’t too disrupted, some people may feel relieved by fewer encounters with law enforcement and “quality of life” penalties (though if we aren’t missing their presence, the defiant cops may fail to make us value them more by withholding their labor). And the inflammatory speechifying of Pat Lynch, head of the NYPD’s largest union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), hasn’t quite charmed the masses into rallying around the cops.

Whether the police slowdown marks an organized insurgency or just individual expressions of frustration, the “depolicing” phenomenon raises tricky questions about the role of the police in society and in the labor movement.

Cops are workers. They’re employed to do a job, albeit one that sometimes involves racially profiling or shooting our neighbors, or squandering our tax dollars on paramilitary swag. It’s difficult to argue against police unionization in theory, if you adhere to the principle that everyone who works has a right to organize.

FULL story at link.

[juxtaposed]

1. pba needs to be removed.... R/W,, B/S Cops are in it for themselves. They are not union brothers

nor sisters.
I hope you know that?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. City cops & Sheriffs Dept in Madison stood with the protestors.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Labor will do what it can, but I think the police we have are a result of what the state wants.

We'll see what happens in the wake of the NYPD slowdown/snit. It appears to be popular with people to not be harassed for petty offenses, and DeBlasio is going to get credit for lowering crime in NYC.

Maybe it will start a conversation on what kind of policing we really want in this country.