NYC Labor May Break With Police Union

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jacobfischler/nyc-labor-may-break-with-police-union

New York City's top progressives have backed away from any direct confrontation with the city's largest police union, even as union leaders continue to criticize the mayor following the shooting of two officers.

But the silence of non-police unions may not last long into the new year.

That will depend on the actions of Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and whether he continues his public campaign against Mayor Bill de Blasio, sources with knowledge of union thinking say. Unions were instrumental in getting de Blasio elected and are considered among his closest allies.

<snip>

The city's police unions are not members of the AFL-CIO, unlike many of New York City's largest unions.

[marym625]

1. Good. n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Yes indeed.

I think unions have a sort of self-policing (no pun intended) responsibility to the society at large, and in this case the cops union needs to get its ears pinned back by the other unions.

[marym625]

7. intended or not,

Good pun.

Precisely. The whole reason for unions is to protect the workers. When one union is not just constantly and consistently ignoring atrocities against society but defending them, they are not doing any service to anyone. That includes the people they represent. I believe that the way the NYPD are acting, the slow down especially, is hurting them as much as it is society on a whole.

Although, from what I have read, it hasn't really seemed to have changed anything as far as crime goes.

[Starry Messenger]

3. I agree too.

It's not an easy decision to make, but the police union has been making it easier.

I've read that PBA isn't the only cop Union in NYC, I wonder if anyone here knows any more about if that is true?

The PBA not being in the AFL-CIO explains a lot. Unions aren't perfect on race issues, but the Federation has a common mandate to fight racism and other social injustice.

[marym625]

8. Good question

I hope someone answers. If it's like Missouri, there's at least one more.

[Starry Messenger]

10. NYTimes cites five but doesn't name the other four.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/nyregion/mayor-de-blasio-and-police-union-leaders-meeting.html

"Three of the five police unions have already reached tentative labor agreements with the administration; the city is approaching arbitration proceedings with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association."

Be interesting to know who they are, and if PBA speaks for them. They don't have much of a web presence that I can find.

[joshcryer]

13. "Unions aren't perfect on race issues"

That's what I argued a month ago.

I'm glad other unions appear to be making efforts to distance themselves from more corrupt unions.

[lunasun]

4. They should as Lynch etc. have dragged the word Union down in to the dirt

[socialist_n_TN]

5. Due to the nature of police work.......

as enforcers of the capitalist system of property relations, I don't think that police unions should be considered working class organizations anyway. So I think this would be a good move. The beating of that on duty transit worker (who is a member of the Transit Workers Union) by the off-duty cop in NYC will probably speed the process.

[Starry Messenger]

9. I saw that story this morning on FB.

It's like "How can we make ourselves even more dead meat to the eyes of the public?"

(This is kind of a side-bar story: my husband taught English in an agricultural village in Mexico with a co-op structure. The local "cops" were rotating volunteers from the village who served set terms. The only thing they had was a stick that wasn't a weapon, but a badge of office. There was hardly any crime, they mostly settled disputes.

I don't know if that can be scaled up, but I feel there are some lessons there...!)

[socialist_n_TN]

12. I'm not sure that it can actually be scaled up, but then again......

I'm not sure it would need to be scaled up. If each neighborhood had it's own group of "police" that were charged by the neighbors with settling disputes and protecting persons and personal property (whatever the neighborhood considered personal property) rather than "private" property, I believe that could work. But it would take a LOT more organizing within everyone's neighborhood.

The whole point is to create dual power structures that take the place of the "official" ones and then build them to the point where THEY are the go-to rather than the official ones.

[joshcryer]

14. And false arrests or prosecutions for revenue.

Designed specifically to keep them hired.

[progressoid]

6. Rec!

[2banon]

11. Good.