Most of the reasons why police unions are bad have much more to do with the problems of being police, not the “problems” of being a union.
If cops didn’t suck and occupy a unique position of being the holders of legal lethal force within civilian society then I wouldn’t have such an issue with them. The core issue is that they cover for the murderers in their ranks, not that they push for better pay.
The core issue is that they wield sufficient political power to blunt oversight by elected officials, and that is a direct result of their union organizing.
No, it is a result of the Elected Officials and General Public being okay with the behaviour of the “bad apples” because it was directed towards those that it was considered acceptable (homeless, vagrants, minority’s, etc).
I don't think that there is a conflict of interest between a public union influencing a politician any more than there is when a private union manages to get a seat on the board of directors. In either case, it is the union acting in the best interests of its employees. And given the power disparity between employer and employee in both public and private sectors, I think this just helps to close the gap.
I do think there is an issue when a public union donates to a political campaign, but I also think there's an issue when a private union, or a corporation, or anyone donate to a political campaign. Because money distorts the political system. The underlying issue is that campaign donations have become a quid pro quo situation and normal means of doing business. The fix, then, is to get money out of politics. I would be fine with giving candidates for political office a set budget, paid for by the government, and disallowing any other sources of campaign financing. This would fix both the quid quo pro issues and the fact that elections are won 90% of the time by the candidate with a bigger budget.
Most of the reasons why police unions are bad have much more to do with the problems of being police, not the “problems” of being a union.
If cops didn’t suck and occupy a unique position of being the holders of legal lethal force within civilian society then I wouldn’t have such an issue with them. The core issue is that they cover for the murderers in their ranks, not that they push for better pay.
The core issue is that they wield sufficient political power to blunt oversight by elected officials, and that is a direct result of their union organizing.
Or perhaps the interests of the state dovetail with the interests of its enforcers and the union doesnt change that.
I thought we already pretty much agreed that police unions are a special case, and are problematic for reasons to do with "police" and not "unions"?
Regardless, why should public sector unions be expected to not work for the benefit of the public sector employees? That's what a union is! That's the whole point! To protect the employees!
I mean, so far I'm interpreting your argument as something akin to "public sector admin assistants should not be able to form unions because police do bad things and also the unions do not adequately consider the effects of stapler usage on the northern Colorado titmouse."
I'm... not super compelled.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
They usually wield power because they are popular and get a lot of public support even when they do awful stuff. Elected officials often go along with the police simply because of that. If more people hated cops, that would be less of a problem.
But your "bad thing" is only bad in the abstract. Like, "the government having lobbying power" sounds scary, especially if you're the sort that just reflexively assumes the government is evil.
But in practice, public sector unions are just a bunch of low level 9-5ers who want to not get fucked over by their powerful employer. They're not different from any other union in any way that matters, and they certainly haven't proven to be any more dangerous than private sector unions.
Though of course, a lot of folks who want to kill public sector unions probably want to kill unions in general, so at least they're consistent.
We just finished setting out the specific ways that police unions are bad! Moreover, there's no need to assume they're evil - just self-interested. Your argument rests on the idea that the union won't try to help its members and instead keep the public interest in mind, advocating for candidates that support the public good rather than candidates that benefit the union. That's a ridiculous assumption! Of course the union endorses candidates that are good for the union, that's what everybody is paying them to do.
In a private sector union, this is basically fine. In a public sector union it's inherently incestuous but it can still work out OK, and in a police union it's downright horrible and people die under a regime that fails at oversight and neuters elected officials.
I don't think it's terribly fair to the discussion to fling a pile of links, some of which themselves have links, an effort that from my quick review would take 1-2 hours to even begin to consume, as evidence of anything. Do me the favor of putting some work in yourself and point to the relevant pieces of the source.
While you're doing that, consider that none of your links, so far as I can tell from my extremely fast scope review, have anything whatsoever to do with public sector unions or police unions in specific, and maybe save yourself the time as well. None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
I thought we already pretty much agreed that police unions are a special case, and are problematic for reasons to do with "police" and not "unions"?
Regardless, why should public sector unions be expected to not work for the benefit of the public sector employees? That's what a union is! That's the whole point! To protect the employees!
I mean, so far I'm interpreting your argument as something akin to "public sector admin assistants should not be able to form unions because police do bad things and also the unions do not adequately consider the effects of stapler usage on the northern Colorado titmouse."
I'm... not super compelled.
Let me see if I can be more clear, though you still might not find it a compelling argument.
I don't agree that the problem is 'police' rather than 'union' - I think the problem is 'police union', and with poor oversight due to the police union itself wielding significant collective political power that defends police from that oversight. Police unions should be barred from political organizing, collective political activity, any collective expression of political opinion whatsoever. They should be, as a body, politically neutral.
I think that this is a problem of degrees, not one where police unions are a special category, and that any public sector union has the potential to abuse their status as publicly funded organizations to advocate for and help to elect officials who will then further enrich the very organization spending money to elect them. Various checks are in place to prevent this, and it works at least partially, perhaps completely, to insulate and segregate political organization from other union activity. There is of course little to no oversight of this, and it's to the union's advantage to extract as much political oomph from its membership as it can - in time, talent, or treasure as they say. I think public sector unions should also be barred from political advocacy and other political activity of all kinds, including fundraising and donations, but this is a place where reasonable people disagree easily and with enough care, at least some kind of a financial firewall can be maintained.
I think that it would be pretty hard in practice to prevent a public union from my proposed prohibited political activity because it's so strongly to their benefit to get around the rules, and it's also pretty hard in practice currently to get the unions not to muddle political action funds with union time, talent, and treasure because money is fungible, social pressure is a thing, and fuckery is strongly to their benefit.
I think private sector unions don't enter into this tangent.
They usually wield power because they are popular and get a lot of public support even when they do awful stuff. Elected officials often go along with the police simply because of that. If more people hated cops, that would be less of a problem.
It's precisely because they are popular while also being an enforcement arm of the State that they should be prevented from collective political activity.
Which brings us back to "in practice, public sector unions do not actually cause any more harm than private sector unions, while providing valuable protections from abuse at the hands of employers."
Meanwhile, police unions are enough of a special case that it does not warrant killing all public sector unions everywhere just to get rid of them, especially since the problems caused by police unions would still exist even if they deunionized.
So. You can either just argue that all unions are bad, or you can provide specific examples of public sector unions doing bad things as a result of them being both a) public sector and b) unions. Because "but something bad might happen some day, even though it hasn't for the past several decades" isn't compelling, nor is "they are generally for more progressive causes than private sector unions".
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
But your "bad thing" is only bad in the abstract. Like, "the government having lobbying power" sounds scary, especially if you're the sort that just reflexively assumes the government is evil.
But in practice, public sector unions are just a bunch of low level 9-5ers who want to not get fucked over by their powerful employer. They're not different from any other union in any way that matters, and they certainly haven't proven to be any more dangerous than private sector unions.
Though of course, a lot of folks who want to kill public sector unions probably want to kill unions in general, so at least they're consistent.
We just finished setting out the specific ways that police unions are bad! Moreover, there's no need to assume they're evil - just self-interested. Your argument rests on the idea that the union won't try to help its members and instead keep the public interest in mind, advocating for candidates that support the public good rather than candidates that benefit the union. That's a ridiculous assumption! Of course the union endorses candidates that are good for the union, that's what everybody is paying them to do.
In a private sector union, this is basically fine. In a public sector union it's inherently incestuous but it can still work out OK, and in a police union it's downright horrible and people die under a regime that fails at oversight and neuters elected officials.
I don't think it's terribly fair to the discussion to fling a pile of links, some of which themselves have links, an effort that from my quick review would take 1-2 hours to even begin to consume, as evidence of anything. Do me the favor of putting some work in yourself and point to the relevant pieces of the source.
While you're doing that, consider that none of your links, so far as I can tell from my extremely fast scope review, have anything whatsoever to do with public sector unions or police unions in specific, and maybe save yourself the time as well. None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
Apologies if you were referring to police unions specifically, I read it as more broadly applying to all union activity, specifically public sector unions. The meat and potatoes from the study the NYT article references deal with both private and public sector union membership and are as follows:
It is well-documented that, since at least the early twentieth century, U.S. income
inequality has varied inversely with union density. But moving beyond this aggregate
relationship has proven difficult, in part because of the absence of micro-level data
on union membership prior to 1973. We develop a new source of micro-data on union
membership, opinion polls primarily from Gallup (N ≈ 980, 000), to look at the effects
of unions on inequality from 1936 to the present. First, we present a new time series
of household union membership from this period. Second, we use these data to show
that, throughout this period, union density is inversely correlated with the relative
skill of union members. When density was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, union
members were relatively less-skilled, whereas today and in the pre-World War II period,
union members are equally skilled as non-members. Third, we estimate union household
income premiums over this same period, finding that despite large changes in union
density and selection, the premium holds steady, at roughly 15–20 log points, over the
past eighty years. Finally, we present a number of direct results that, across a variety
of identifying assumptions, suggest unions have had a significant, equalizing effect on
the income distribution over our long sample period.
We leverage historical polling data, allowing us to provide a systematic, representative study
of unions’ effects on the income distribution over a much longer period than existing work.
We show that a combination of low-skill composition, compression, and a large union income
premium made mid-century unions a powerful force for equalizing the income distribution.
As unions have receded, it is perhaps surprising—and counter to the predictions of some
SBTC models of endogenous unionization—that relatively skilled workers are the ones that
remain. This pattern mimics the pre-World War II era, when unions were both small and their
members relatively skilled. Our results show that over the last nine decades, when unions
expand, whether at the national level or the state level, they tend to draw in unskilled
workers and raise their relative wages, with significant impacts on inequality.
From my second link, one cited benefit is that increased union membership (both private and public) increases overall federal tax revenue and reduces public benefit expenditures:
The analysis provides the first and best-available evidence that union membership has a large, positive net
fiscal impact at the individual-worker level. Union members appear to pay more every year in federal,
state, and local taxes than do similar non-union workers, which is connected to the fact that they earn
thousands more dollars in annual private income on average. Furthermore, union members appear to
receive less in public benefits on average. Aggregating across NFI components and measuring NFI at the
individual level, we observe that union members contributed on average $1,300 more per year to the
public balance sheet than similar non-union workers. The fixed-effect estimate is smaller in magnitude
but points to the same substantive conclusion, union membership is estimated to cause an additional $540
more per year in NFI. If one accepts the conditions laid out in Freeman (1984), an unbiased estimate lies
between these two figures. This is the first analysis focusing on or quantifying this effect of unions.
Though the prevalence of unionization is declining, this evidence suggests that nearly 15 million
American union members are contributing an average of between $540 and $1,300 more annually to the
public balance sheet than they would otherwise be. If the U.S. union membership rate stayed at its 1994
level of 17.4 percent, 8.4 million nonunion workers in 2015 would have been union members.
By this pie-splitting channel, unions also appear to reduce Americans’ reliance on the social
safety net by shifting resources earned in the private economy from owners to workers. Unions help make
work pay by raising lower-paid workers’ private income, reducing their use of public benefits and
increasing their contribution of taxes to the public fisc. While this may come at the expense of income to
firm owners and investors, their self-sufficiency is likely much less impacted.
“The main takeaway is that we have new evidence that unions move families towards a middle-class model of earning sufficient private income, paying taxes, and staying clearer of the public safety net. If family self-sufficiency is an important value to you as a policymaker or a citizen and you are looking for tools to increase it, don’t overlook unions. They help families stay clear of the worst economic outcomes by increasing private income and insurance coverage.” Sojourner says. “Decreased unionization over recent decades has shifted resources away from workers, especially workers with lower earning power,” the authors write. “This seems to have decreased their tax payments and increased their reliance on public benefits. Put another way, as unionization erodes, working families’ ability to stay clear of the public safety net erodes.”
My third article has many references I'm working through, but one of the main points is this long takeaway, among many other at-large benefits:
Unions raise wages for both union and nonunion workers
For typical workers, hourly pay growth has been sluggish for decades, rising 0.3 percent per year or 9.9 percent in all from 1979 to 2015. If pay had risen with productivity during that period, as it did in the decades before 1979, pay would have gone up 63.8 percent.18 But pay for typical workers is not rising at this clip because ever-larger shares of economic growth are going to the highest wage earners. Income growth for the highest 1 percent of wage earners rose by nearly 190 percent between 1979 and 2015, meaning that the highest-earning 1 percent have claimed a radically disproportionate share of income growth.19
Working people in unions use their power in numbers to secure a fairer share of the income they create. Employers who have to bargain with workers collectively cannot pursue a strategy of “divide and conquer” among their workers. Workers who are empowered by forming a union raise wages for union and nonunion workers alike. As an economic sector becomes more unionized, nonunion employers pay more to retain qualified workers and norms of higher pay and better conditions become standard. For example, if a union hospital is across town from a nonunion hospital and the two hospitals are competing for workers, then the nonunion workers will benefit from the presence of the union hospital.
Union workers earn more. On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 13.2 percent more in wages than a peer with similar education, occupation, and experience in a nonunionized workplace in the same sector.20 This pay boost was even greater in earlier decades when more American workers were unionized.21
Unions also raise pay for workers by helping to enforce labor standards, like guarding against wage theft. Union workers are more knowledgeable about their rights, and union representatives communicate when needed with government enforcement agencies, which enhances enforcement of wage violations. For example, workers covered by a union are half as likely to be the victims of minimum wage violations (i.e., to be paid an effective hourly rate that is below the minimum wage). This form of wage theft is costing workers over $15 billion a year, causing many families to fall below the poverty line.22
When union density is high, nonunion workers benefit from higher wages. When the share of workers who are union members is relatively high, as it was in 1979, wages of nonunion workers are higher. For example, had union density remained at its 1979 level, weekly wages of nonunion men in the private sector would be 5 percent higher (that’s an additional $2,704 in earnings for year-round workers), while wages for nonunion men in the private sector without a college education would be 8 percent, or $3,016 per year, higher. (These estimates look at what wages would have been in 2013 had union density remained at its 1979 levels).23
Where unions remain strong, unions have an ability to raise wages sector-wide. An example is the hospitality industry in Orlando, Florida. Negotiations between six local affiliates of the Services Trade Council Union (STCU) and Disney World in 2014 led to wage increases for union members to at least $10 an hour starting in 2016. These local affiliates represent housekeepers, lifeguards, cast members, and other service workers. Disney then extended the raises to all its 70,000 Orlando employees, including nonunion employees. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the wage increases prompted much of Orlando’s hospitality and retail sector, including Westgate Resorts, to raise wages.24
Where unions are strong, wages are higher for typical workers—union and nonunion members alike. Compensation of typical (median) workers grows far faster—four times faster—in states with the smallest declines in unionization than it does in states with the largest declines in unionization.25
Unions bring living wages to low-wage jobs. Unions have transformed once-low-wage jobs in hospitality, nursing, and janitorial services into positions with living wages and opportunities for advancement. For example, after unionizing, dishwashers in Las Vegas hotels made $4 per hour more than the national average for that job, and they were offered excellent benefits. And hospitality workers in unionized Las Vegas enjoy a much higher living standard than those in Reno, where unions are weaker. In Houston, a 2006 first-ever union contract for 5,300 janitors resulted in a 47 percent pay increase and an increase in guaranteed weekly hours of work.26
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what we're talking about is an equally cromulent, but far more accurate take here.
People keep making detailed, nuanced posts about the exact reasons why they dislike police unions due to them being POLICE.
Countering with (paraphrase mine) "But have you considered that unions are bad?" both misses the general and specific arguments that have been brought up surrounding this. I mean, you've correctly spotted that police unions are a wedge issue in organized labor, but me and seemingly a few others in this thread aren't biting.
I support crushing police unions not because I have any problem with public unions advocating for their members because I don't think that taking a governmental job should somehow diminish their rights of free association and organization for their own best interests.
I support crushing police unions because they have a long history of acting in bad faith to protect the police's rights to kill people without consequence. Not because public employees are somehow beholden to not engage in politics. Its like they remain people and citizens even if they get their paycheck from the government instead of a private corporation.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what we're talking about is an equally cromulent, but far more accurate take here.
People keep making detailed, nuanced posts about the exact reasons why they dislike police unions due to them being POLICE.
Countering with (paraphrase mine) "But have you considered that unions are bad?" both misses the general and specific arguments that have been brought up surrounding this. I mean, you've correctly spotted that police unions are a wedge issue in organized labor, but me and seemingly a few others in this thread aren't biting.
I support crushing police unions not because I have any problem with public unions advocating for their members because I don't think that taking a governmental job should somehow diminish their rights of free association and organization for their own best interests.
I support crushing police unions because they have a long history of acting in bad faith to protect the police's rights to kill people without consequence. Not because public employees are somehow beholden to not engage in politics. Its like they remain people and citizens even if they get their paycheck from the government instead of a private corporation.
I think your criticism misses the mark. I'm not arguing that members of the police should be barred from free association, I'm arguing that police unions themselves should be barred specifically from political activity (not other types of activity). Individuals are free to associate with each other, even form a separate PAC, but the official representative organization of The Police shouldn't be allowed to express a collective political opinion. I think everyone is missing the fundamental connection between police union political action and a lack of oversight by elected officials. If The Official Police were forbidden from expressing a political opinion as a collective group, barred from using confusingly similar iconography, and so forth, just as the military is now, elected officials would have less fear of campaigning for and enacting strong oversight.
It leads me to wonder if you'd support the Joint Chiefs expressing the combined political opinion of the armed services during the upcoming Presidential campaign. Or perhaps the formation of a union for non-officer members that might itself take collective action to sway an election.
If not, why would that be different from union political activity by the police?
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
Sure. Knowing overall geo-political strategy concerns from those tasked with implementing it would be a great boon to the civic discourse. As a voter knowing where people stand is of great utility.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what we're talking about is an equally cromulent, but far more accurate take here.
People keep making detailed, nuanced posts about the exact reasons why they dislike police unions due to them being POLICE.
Countering with (paraphrase mine) "But have you considered that unions are bad?" both misses the general and specific arguments that have been brought up surrounding this. I mean, you've correctly spotted that police unions are a wedge issue in organized labor, but me and seemingly a few others in this thread aren't biting.
I support crushing police unions not because I have any problem with public unions advocating for their members because I don't think that taking a governmental job should somehow diminish their rights of free association and organization for their own best interests.
I support crushing police unions because they have a long history of acting in bad faith to protect the police's rights to kill people without consequence. Not because public employees are somehow beholden to not engage in politics. Its like they remain people and citizens even if they get their paycheck from the government instead of a private corporation.
I think your criticism misses the mark. I'm not arguing that members of the police should be barred from free association, I'm arguing that police unions themselves should be barred specifically from political activity (not other types of activity). Individuals are free to associate with each other, even form a separate PAC, but the official representative organization of The Police shouldn't be allowed to express a collective political opinion. I think everyone is missing the fundamental connection between police union political action and a lack of oversight by elected officials. If The Official Police were forbidden from expressing a political opinion as a collective group, barred from using confusingly similar iconography, and so forth, just as the military is now, elected officials would have less fear of campaigning for and enacting strong oversight.
It leads me to wonder if you'd support the Joint Chiefs expressing the combined political opinion of the armed services during the upcoming Presidential campaign. Or perhaps the formation of a union for non-officer members that might itself take collective action to sway an election.
If not, why would that be different from union political activity by the police?
Because the police are civilians, for one (and the fact that you're using this argument is yet another disturbing sign of how the "militarization" of the police has been sold.)
If unions and public sector unions wielded some outsize political power, one would think the Australian election would have been far different.
The unions ran an accurate campaign of 'We have been castigated by regulation, and cannot effectively negotiate or strike, Change the Rules!'.
Neither major party embraced the campaign, even though one is 'Labor' and we're generally suffering from low wage growth due to the aforementioned lack of employee bargaining power.
And the ones that did not endorse it at all got reelected.
Sure. Knowing overall geo-political strategy concerns from those tasked with implementing it would be a great boon to the civic discourse. As a voter knowing where people stand is of great utility.
This opinion is pretty shocking, to be honest. It's effectively a call for a military dictatorship. The DoD's implementation of the Hatch Act is here and it is critical to the prevention of military control of the government.
Really, if anything, the reason police unions get more attention and funding than most other public functions is that the right is forced to invest money into protective services due to their philosophy of keeping the populace scared so that only they can protect you.
MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
If you say so. Its not like various govt organs run by appointed officials don't have preferences, as a voter I just don't know what they are. I in no way feel beholden to vote along those lines mind you, but if for example the JCS had said "Trump is wildly unsuited for the job, but if you the voters vote for it we'll do our best to folllow the wishes of the American people" I wouldn't have much of an issue. The second they make noises about not following civilian leadership we're in a different place, but it's not like the internal military TV networks haven't been running right wing propaganda for decades already.
A simple ban on police unions endorsing political campaigns seems serviceable to me. My dad always explained that as a cop he couldn't in good conscience be seen as supporting any one political party because the cops are supposed to be apolitical.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what we're talking about is an equally cromulent, but far more accurate take here.
People keep making detailed, nuanced posts about the exact reasons why they dislike police unions due to them being POLICE.
Countering with (paraphrase mine) "But have you considered that unions are bad?" both misses the general and specific arguments that have been brought up surrounding this. I mean, you've correctly spotted that police unions are a wedge issue in organized labor, but me and seemingly a few others in this thread aren't biting.
I support crushing police unions not because I have any problem with public unions advocating for their members because I don't think that taking a governmental job should somehow diminish their rights of free association and organization for their own best interests.
I support crushing police unions because they have a long history of acting in bad faith to protect the police's rights to kill people without consequence. Not because public employees are somehow beholden to not engage in politics. Its like they remain people and citizens even if they get their paycheck from the government instead of a private corporation.
I think your criticism misses the mark. I'm not arguing that members of the police should be barred from free association, I'm arguing that police unions themselves should be barred specifically from political activity (not other types of activity). Individuals are free to associate with each other, even form a separate PAC, but the official representative organization of The Police shouldn't be allowed to express a collective political opinion. I think everyone is missing the fundamental connection between police union political action and a lack of oversight by elected officials. If The Official Police were forbidden from expressing a political opinion as a collective group, barred from using confusingly similar iconography, and so forth, just as the military is now, elected officials would have less fear of campaigning for and enacting strong oversight.
It leads me to wonder if you'd support the Joint Chiefs expressing the combined political opinion of the armed services during the upcoming Presidential campaign. Or perhaps the formation of a union for non-officer members that might itself take collective action to sway an election.
If not, why would that be different from union political activity by the police?
New Orleans does not have a police union. It was about to form but due to overreach fell apart decades ago and no one has tried again since. We have the exact same problems with police that every other city does. The police don't need a union to advocate for them. Their outsized political influence comes entirely from the way our culture views them. If they needed a union to advocate for them they would not be as effective.
A simple ban on police unions endorsing political campaigns seems serviceable to me. My dad always explained that as a cop he couldn't in good conscience be seen as supporting any one political party because the cops are supposed to be apolitical.
If that survives the courts itll almost certainly take down other public sector union endorsements
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
The biggest common thread here is that authoritarianism is so rampant throughout our society that even knowing the opinions of some classes of people is considered off-limits, ie, if civil/military servants have political views the assumption is that it will immediately translate to control because the voters will fall in line.
I can't bring myself to disagree based on history, but that corollary is a damning condemnation of the state of American civic discourse and the state of our democracy. I'm going to have to think on that more as it relates to public unions, because I'm hard opposed to removing entire sections of people from public political discourse as a matter of principle. Democracies work better with an informed electorate and knowing that, for example, the police hate an oversight measure because their union opposed it is very useful to me, because as someone who wants to reign the police in their support of a proposition/politician can help to inform me on the cost/benefit analysis of my vote.
But some people do defer to those in positions of power, even when within the context of a properly functioning democracy they shouldn't. The voters can and should overrule the opinions of those people who are in positions of temporary governmental power in subsequent elections if they are no longer aligned. Knowing those opinions is valuable to me as a voter, but I can see how those views would influence voters who for whatever reason defer to public servants, allowing organized groups of civil servants to exercise a mammothly outsized influence over voters behavior.
Do we remove entire portions of our society from exercising their rights to free speech and distort the information landscape available to the voting public, or do we strip political activism from them and demand that because of their temporary position of public power they are no longer allowed to advocate on their own behalf?
Truly a sticky wicket. For a start, I'm coming down on the side that the concern of the military advocating for anything is right out. Soldiers aren't civilians and agreed to abrogation of civilian law in order to create the authoritarian structure needed for a military to function. Its a structure rife with potential for abuse and after further thought I think Spool is right, the JCS shouldn't be out there advocating for politicians. Soldiers follow their leaders, its kinda their thing. So that's right out, and I think get why my earlier comments were shocking to Spool.
As for cops? They aren't the military, they are civilians. And I don't believe we should be stripping civilians of their rights to free association and free speech, even if I'm personally hard opposed to what they want. But many, far too many, voters act as if governmental servants' opinions as something they should be beholden to, creating a situation that holds the possibility of incredible abuse.
The "but if group X gets to express a political opinion, it's basically an X dictatorship," in addition to being ridiculous hyperbole, also assumes that we don't pretty much already know what these groups think, broadly speaking.
Oh man, I wonder which political party the NRA is going to endorse? Gee, if only we knew how the police, as a group, felt about authoritarianism! Anybody have the inside scoop on what the military thinks of the party that wants to give more money to the military?
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
A ban on police unions backing political candidates should be implemented for the same reason that the military doesn't allow any of it's branches to endorse candidates and expressly forbids campaigning & endorsing candidates by service members in uniform or any other manner that implies backing by the military. The police should be seen as apolitical because their are lazy and dumb voters that always assume that the police are right and that means a police union endorsement skews public perception on a candidate in a way it shouldn't. This is also probably have you let it survive court challenge because police members aren't being forbidding from campaigning for someone, they are just being told they cannot do so in a manner that implies that the police are in favor of one candidate over another, just like how things currently work for the military.
We don't have this issue with other public sector jobs because large swaths of the publics do not view these unions as authority figures whose opinions should be consider above their preferences.
Also, before anyone says otherwise, doctors do have a union in America, but they don't call it a union in explicit terms: it's name is the American Medical Association.
Less a union than a guild, I think
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Also, before anyone says otherwise, doctors do have a union in America, but they don't call it a union in explicit terms: it's name is the American Medical Association.
Less a union than a guild, I think
We came to this conclusion on the previous page. :surprised:
A ban on police unions backing political candidates should be implemented for the same reason that the military doesn't allow any of it's branches to endorse candidates and expressly forbids campaigning & endorsing candidates by service members in uniform or any other manner that implies backing by the military. The police should be seen as apolitical because their are lazy and dumb voters that always assume that the police are right and that means a police union endorsement skews public perception on a candidate in a way it shouldn't. This is also probably have you let it survive court challenge because police members aren't being forbidding from campaigning for someone, they are just being told they cannot do so in a manner that implies that the police are in favor of one candidate over another, just like how things currently work for the military.
We don't have this issue with other public sector jobs because large swaths of the publics do not view these unions as authority figures whose opinions should be consider above their preferences.
I want police to be treated less like the military in the US; not more.
There was once deep fear help by some that limiting campaign hours would mean limiting the amount of work done on a campaign, which would mean reducing the chances of winning.
But there’s also a clear sense of failure in the status quo. The 80 hour work-week didn’t help Democrats hold 900 seats in state legislatures under Obama, it didn’t push Sanders over Clinton, and it didn’t push Clinton over Trump. There’s no telling what a unionized campaign strategy could have done in any of the scenarios, but it’s hard to imagine them turning out worse.
“Working on a campaign is a tremendously stressful job with very long hours,” Loomis, the labor historian, said. “It is a situation ripe for exploitation and many people burn out. Having a process to adjudicate disputes and create boundaries on acceptable behavior and working conditions is very important. If a Democratic presidential candidate can’t accept a union among their own staff, I don’t see how voters concerned with labor issues can believe that candidate will fight for their priorities if said person is elected to office.”
If the unionized 2020 campaigns make headway, Democratic campaigns of the future may be singing a similar tune.
Also, before anyone says otherwise, doctors do have a union in America, but they don't call it a union in explicit terms: it's name is the American Medical Association.
Less a union than a guild, I think
We came to this conclusion on the previous page. :surprised:
I realized that about seven seconds after I posted. Teach me not to read to the end of a thread!
A ban on police unions backing political candidates should be implemented for the same reason that the military doesn't allow any of it's branches to endorse candidates and expressly forbids campaigning & endorsing candidates by service members in uniform or any other manner that implies backing by the military. The police should be seen as apolitical because their are lazy and dumb voters that always assume that the police are right and that means a police union endorsement skews public perception on a candidate in a way it shouldn't. This is also probably have you let it survive court challenge because police members aren't being forbidding from campaigning for someone, they are just being told they cannot do so in a manner that implies that the police are in favor of one candidate over another, just like how things currently work for the military.
We don't have this issue with other public sector jobs because large swaths of the publics do not view these unions as authority figures whose opinions should be consider above their preferences.
I want police to be treated less like the military in the US; not more.
Indeed, but this is a case where there is a similarity. Tons of people sadly are lazy and dumb enough to defer to an authority figure as being right without putting any thought into whether or not that authority figure is doing the right thing. Hell, we've had case where people feel that it's probably wrong, but it's an authority figure, there must be a good reason.
So in cases of unions and campaigns, I don't want police unions to be allowed to campaign for a candidate because they are suppose to be apolitical and there are people that lazily defer to them on a number of things, where people really should actually put some thought and arrive at their own conclusions. "This candidate is who I'm voting for because the cops say I should," is fucking cancer for our democracy, in same why as "the troops say I should back this guy, so I'm going to vote for him."
You can pretty much fix the police union baggage that we all have problems with with an 3rd party committee that oversees disputes and any legal judgements come out of the police union pensions.
It won't address spool's issues, but I think spool's issues probably aren't really worth addressing until we take care of the actual real problem. Once people aren't okay with murder and their buddies pay out pocket to victims when cops murder others that shit will stop happening so frequently. Making them apolitical can come with reversing the citizens united ruling and bearing down on anyone that uses any organization or pac for donations and campaigning.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
There was once deep fear help by some that limiting campaign hours would mean limiting the amount of work done on a campaign, which would mean reducing the chances of winning.
But there’s also a clear sense of failure in the status quo. The 80 hour work-week didn’t help Democrats hold 900 seats in state legislatures under Obama, it didn’t push Sanders over Clinton, and it didn’t push Clinton over Trump. There’s no telling what a unionized campaign strategy could have done in any of the scenarios, but it’s hard to imagine them turning out worse.
“Working on a campaign is a tremendously stressful job with very long hours,” Loomis, the labor historian, said. “It is a situation ripe for exploitation and many people burn out. Having a process to adjudicate disputes and create boundaries on acceptable behavior and working conditions is very important. If a Democratic presidential candidate can’t accept a union among their own staff, I don’t see how voters concerned with labor issues can believe that candidate will fight for their priorities if said person is elected to office.”
If the unionized 2020 campaigns make headway, Democratic campaigns of the future may be singing a similar tune.
In follow-up, labor historian Erik Loomis (who was quoted in the piece) has more to say:
A few additional thoughts here. First, it’s good on Bernie to agree to this. But that doesn’t change the culture of political campaigns. The people who rise in this world are those who actually like those 80 hour weeks. They were treated like shit and now treat others the same. That means that they expect a certain kind of culture that does not go well with a union culture where those workers are empowered–where, to take one example, the kind of things Amy Klobuchar is known to have said and done to her staff aren’t allowed or can be contested.
Second, it’s at least possible that it is required to work those 80 hour weeks during a campaign. But that means you have to have very strict laws concerning workplace behavior. And it is a workplace! It doesn’t matter if the candidate is a conservative, liberal, or leftist, all of these workers are operating in similar conditions and need similar avenues to redress wrongs.
Third, as someone looking at the bigger picture of politics, I am more concerned with nurturing long-term organizing than just plowing through vulnerable young campaign workers and spitting 99% of them out after it is over. There are far too many organizing norms that do this. Political campaigns are one–and are a place where lots of people get their first taste of this world. Many unions are another and that’s unconscionable. It is also why I despise direct funding campaign organizing such as PIRG. Taking idealistic young kids and making them do nothing but raise money for the larger organization with no room for advancement is a horrible way to nurture organizers. I wouldn’t do that and neither should you.
New details on an anonymous unfair labor practice charge filed against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign shine a light on some of the allegations against the campaign.
The charge was filed by a former staffer, a campaign spokeswoman told Bloomberg Law. The staffer alleges that the campaign retaliated against certain workers for engaging in protected labor activity, according to redacted copy of the document.
Campaign leaders “retaliated against me when I organized the bargaining unit and sent an email requesting compliance with the” collective employment contract, the anonymous staffer wrote in the charge. The staffer also said that at least three campaign workers were fired in retaliation for their organizing and union activities, among other allegations.
The allegations come shortly after a tense period in the relationship between the Sanders campaign and the union representing its staffers was recently made public. The internal disagreements sparked some criticism of the White House candidate—who has made worker rights a central part of his pitch to voters—from conservatives and Republican politicians.
Sanders in an interview with the Des Moines Register last week defended his campaign’s treatment of staffers and said he was “disappointed” that some staff had taken their complaints to the media.
A ban on police unions backing political candidates should be implemented for the same reason that the military doesn't allow any of it's branches to endorse candidates and expressly forbids campaigning & endorsing candidates by service members in uniform or any other manner that implies backing by the military. The police should be seen as apolitical because their are lazy and dumb voters that always assume that the police are right and that means a police union endorsement skews public perception on a candidate in a way it shouldn't. This is also probably have you let it survive court challenge because police members aren't being forbidding from campaigning for someone, they are just being told they cannot do so in a manner that implies that the police are in favor of one candidate over another, just like how things currently work for the military.
We don't have this issue with other public sector jobs because large swaths of the publics do not view these unions as authority figures whose opinions should be consider above their preferences.
I want police to be treated less like the military in the US; not more.
Indeed, but this is a case where there is a similarity. Tons of people sadly are lazy and dumb enough to defer to an authority figure as being right without putting any thought into whether or not that authority figure is doing the right thing. Hell, we've had case where people feel that it's probably wrong, but it's an authority figure, there must be a good reason.
So in cases of unions and campaigns, I don't want police unions to be allowed to campaign for a candidate because they are suppose to be apolitical and there are people that lazily defer to them on a number of things, where people really should actually put some thought and arrive at their own conclusions. "This candidate is who I'm voting for because the cops say I should," is fucking cancer for our democracy, in same why as "the troops say I should back this guy, so I'm going to vote for him."
Not to mention that is bad for democracy that institutions that work to enforce the monopoly of strength of the State get partisan. That's the voice of bitter experience talking.
The YouTubers Union, a community-based movement fighting for the rights of content creators and users, has joined forces with IG Metall, Germany's largest union and Europe's largest trade union. Together, they have launched a joint venture called FairTube and sent a letter of demands to YouTube accompanied by a video explaining their concerns, demands, and plan of action.
The move is one of the most significant organized labor actions taken by creators on the platform, and puts some actual union power behind what has thus far been a nascent and disorganized movement.
In recent years, YouTube creators have consistently spoken out about changes to the massive platform that they say they are rarely consulted on that affect their ability to make money. For example, YouTube has repeatedly changed how it handles copyright takedown requests (allowing copyright holders to assert copyright on and monetize videos that they didn’t upload, for example.) YouTube has also controversially “demonetized” or issued content warnings to some innocuous channels. One of the creators leading the unionization charge, Jörg Sprave, has had his popular slingshot videos removed by YouTube.
"We aren't demanding things that cut into profits or are unrealistic. We want fairness. We want transparency. We want to be treated like partners. And we want personal communication instead of anonymous communication," Sprave told Motherboard.
Between "Demonetized because fuck you, that's why" and "Yeah, we are fine with companies using DMCA notices to attack negative review videos, no we don't care to check first", YouTube has earned a lot of deserved scorn.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Between "Demonetized because fuck you, that's why" and "Yeah, we are fine with companies using DMCA notices to attack negative review videos, no we don't care to check first", YouTube has earned a lot of deserved scorn.
They don't really have a choice on the latter, do they? The DMCA doesn't really give them a lot of wiggle room.
Between "Demonetized because fuck you, that's why" and "Yeah, we are fine with companies using DMCA notices to attack negative review videos, no we don't care to check first", YouTube has earned a lot of deserved scorn.
They don't really have a choice on the latter, do they? The DMCA doesn't really give them a lot of wiggle room.
YouTube goes well beyond what they're legally required to do.
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I do think there is an issue when a public union donates to a political campaign, but I also think there's an issue when a private union, or a corporation, or anyone donate to a political campaign. Because money distorts the political system. The underlying issue is that campaign donations have become a quid pro quo situation and normal means of doing business. The fix, then, is to get money out of politics. I would be fine with giving candidates for political office a set budget, paid for by the government, and disallowing any other sources of campaign financing. This would fix both the quid quo pro issues and the fact that elections are won 90% of the time by the candidate with a bigger budget.
Or perhaps the interests of the state dovetail with the interests of its enforcers and the union doesnt change that.
Regardless, why should public sector unions be expected to not work for the benefit of the public sector employees? That's what a union is! That's the whole point! To protect the employees!
I mean, so far I'm interpreting your argument as something akin to "public sector admin assistants should not be able to form unions because police do bad things and also the unions do not adequately consider the effects of stapler usage on the northern Colorado titmouse."
I'm... not super compelled.
I don't think it's terribly fair to the discussion to fling a pile of links, some of which themselves have links, an effort that from my quick review would take 1-2 hours to even begin to consume, as evidence of anything. Do me the favor of putting some work in yourself and point to the relevant pieces of the source.
While you're doing that, consider that none of your links, so far as I can tell from my extremely fast scope review, have anything whatsoever to do with public sector unions or police unions in specific, and maybe save yourself the time as well. None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what I'm arguing.
Let me see if I can be more clear, though you still might not find it a compelling argument.
I don't agree that the problem is 'police' rather than 'union' - I think the problem is 'police union', and with poor oversight due to the police union itself wielding significant collective political power that defends police from that oversight. Police unions should be barred from political organizing, collective political activity, any collective expression of political opinion whatsoever. They should be, as a body, politically neutral.
I think that this is a problem of degrees, not one where police unions are a special category, and that any public sector union has the potential to abuse their status as publicly funded organizations to advocate for and help to elect officials who will then further enrich the very organization spending money to elect them. Various checks are in place to prevent this, and it works at least partially, perhaps completely, to insulate and segregate political organization from other union activity. There is of course little to no oversight of this, and it's to the union's advantage to extract as much political oomph from its membership as it can - in time, talent, or treasure as they say. I think public sector unions should also be barred from political advocacy and other political activity of all kinds, including fundraising and donations, but this is a place where reasonable people disagree easily and with enough care, at least some kind of a financial firewall can be maintained.
I think that it would be pretty hard in practice to prevent a public union from my proposed prohibited political activity because it's so strongly to their benefit to get around the rules, and it's also pretty hard in practice currently to get the unions not to muddle political action funds with union time, talent, and treasure because money is fungible, social pressure is a thing, and fuckery is strongly to their benefit.
I think private sector unions don't enter into this tangent.
It's precisely because they are popular while also being an enforcement arm of the State that they should be prevented from collective political activity.
Meanwhile, police unions are enough of a special case that it does not warrant killing all public sector unions everywhere just to get rid of them, especially since the problems caused by police unions would still exist even if they deunionized.
So. You can either just argue that all unions are bad, or you can provide specific examples of public sector unions doing bad things as a result of them being both a) public sector and b) unions. Because "but something bad might happen some day, even though it hasn't for the past several decades" isn't compelling, nor is "they are generally for more progressive causes than private sector unions".
Apologies if you were referring to police unions specifically, I read it as more broadly applying to all union activity, specifically public sector unions. The meat and potatoes from the study the NYT article references deal with both private and public sector union membership and are as follows:
From my second link, one cited benefit is that increased union membership (both private and public) increases overall federal tax revenue and reduces public benefit expenditures:
My third article has many references I'm working through, but one of the main points is this long takeaway, among many other at-large benefits:
None of what you're arguing has anything to do with what we're talking about is an equally cromulent, but far more accurate take here.
People keep making detailed, nuanced posts about the exact reasons why they dislike police unions due to them being POLICE.
Countering with (paraphrase mine) "But have you considered that unions are bad?" both misses the general and specific arguments that have been brought up surrounding this. I mean, you've correctly spotted that police unions are a wedge issue in organized labor, but me and seemingly a few others in this thread aren't biting.
I support crushing police unions not because I have any problem with public unions advocating for their members because I don't think that taking a governmental job should somehow diminish their rights of free association and organization for their own best interests.
I support crushing police unions because they have a long history of acting in bad faith to protect the police's rights to kill people without consequence. Not because public employees are somehow beholden to not engage in politics. Its like they remain people and citizens even if they get their paycheck from the government instead of a private corporation.
I think your criticism misses the mark. I'm not arguing that members of the police should be barred from free association, I'm arguing that police unions themselves should be barred specifically from political activity (not other types of activity). Individuals are free to associate with each other, even form a separate PAC, but the official representative organization of The Police shouldn't be allowed to express a collective political opinion. I think everyone is missing the fundamental connection between police union political action and a lack of oversight by elected officials. If The Official Police were forbidden from expressing a political opinion as a collective group, barred from using confusingly similar iconography, and so forth, just as the military is now, elected officials would have less fear of campaigning for and enacting strong oversight.
It leads me to wonder if you'd support the Joint Chiefs expressing the combined political opinion of the armed services during the upcoming Presidential campaign. Or perhaps the formation of a union for non-officer members that might itself take collective action to sway an election.
If not, why would that be different from union political activity by the police?
Because the police are civilians, for one (and the fact that you're using this argument is yet another disturbing sign of how the "militarization" of the police has been sold.)
The unions ran an accurate campaign of 'We have been castigated by regulation, and cannot effectively negotiate or strike, Change the Rules!'.
Neither major party embraced the campaign, even though one is 'Labor' and we're generally suffering from low wage growth due to the aforementioned lack of employee bargaining power.
And the ones that did not endorse it at all got reelected.
Some scary political influence at play there.
This opinion is pretty shocking, to be honest. It's effectively a call for a military dictatorship. The DoD's implementation of the Hatch Act is here and it is critical to the prevention of military control of the government.
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/134410p.pdf
New Orleans does not have a police union. It was about to form but due to overreach fell apart decades ago and no one has tried again since. We have the exact same problems with police that every other city does. The police don't need a union to advocate for them. Their outsized political influence comes entirely from the way our culture views them. If they needed a union to advocate for them they would not be as effective.
If that survives the courts itll almost certainly take down other public sector union endorsements
I can't bring myself to disagree based on history, but that corollary is a damning condemnation of the state of American civic discourse and the state of our democracy. I'm going to have to think on that more as it relates to public unions, because I'm hard opposed to removing entire sections of people from public political discourse as a matter of principle. Democracies work better with an informed electorate and knowing that, for example, the police hate an oversight measure because their union opposed it is very useful to me, because as someone who wants to reign the police in their support of a proposition/politician can help to inform me on the cost/benefit analysis of my vote.
But some people do defer to those in positions of power, even when within the context of a properly functioning democracy they shouldn't. The voters can and should overrule the opinions of those people who are in positions of temporary governmental power in subsequent elections if they are no longer aligned. Knowing those opinions is valuable to me as a voter, but I can see how those views would influence voters who for whatever reason defer to public servants, allowing organized groups of civil servants to exercise a mammothly outsized influence over voters behavior.
Do we remove entire portions of our society from exercising their rights to free speech and distort the information landscape available to the voting public, or do we strip political activism from them and demand that because of their temporary position of public power they are no longer allowed to advocate on their own behalf?
Truly a sticky wicket. For a start, I'm coming down on the side that the concern of the military advocating for anything is right out. Soldiers aren't civilians and agreed to abrogation of civilian law in order to create the authoritarian structure needed for a military to function. Its a structure rife with potential for abuse and after further thought I think Spool is right, the JCS shouldn't be out there advocating for politicians. Soldiers follow their leaders, its kinda their thing. So that's right out, and I think get why my earlier comments were shocking to Spool.
As for cops? They aren't the military, they are civilians. And I don't believe we should be stripping civilians of their rights to free association and free speech, even if I'm personally hard opposed to what they want. But many, far too many, voters act as if governmental servants' opinions as something they should be beholden to, creating a situation that holds the possibility of incredible abuse.
Oh man, I wonder which political party the NRA is going to endorse? Gee, if only we knew how the police, as a group, felt about authoritarianism! Anybody have the inside scoop on what the military thinks of the party that wants to give more money to the military?
We don't have this issue with other public sector jobs because large swaths of the publics do not view these unions as authority figures whose opinions should be consider above their preferences.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
The closest they'll get to that would be wearing some of their unions paraphernalia or a generic COPS FOR CANDIDATE type t-shirt.
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Less a union than a guild, I think
We came to this conclusion on the previous page. :surprised:
Possibly relevant?
The drop in subscribers and resulting drop in stock price last week seems more relevant.
I want police to be treated less like the military in the US; not more.
I realized that about seven seconds after I posted. Teach me not to read to the end of a thread!
Indeed, but this is a case where there is a similarity. Tons of people sadly are lazy and dumb enough to defer to an authority figure as being right without putting any thought into whether or not that authority figure is doing the right thing. Hell, we've had case where people feel that it's probably wrong, but it's an authority figure, there must be a good reason.
So in cases of unions and campaigns, I don't want police unions to be allowed to campaign for a candidate because they are suppose to be apolitical and there are people that lazily defer to them on a number of things, where people really should actually put some thought and arrive at their own conclusions. "This candidate is who I'm voting for because the cops say I should," is fucking cancer for our democracy, in same why as "the troops say I should back this guy, so I'm going to vote for him."
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
It won't address spool's issues, but I think spool's issues probably aren't really worth addressing until we take care of the actual real problem. Once people aren't okay with murder and their buddies pay out pocket to victims when cops murder others that shit will stop happening so frequently. Making them apolitical can come with reversing the citizens united ruling and bearing down on anyone that uses any organization or pac for donations and campaigning.
In follow-up, labor historian Erik Loomis (who was quoted in the piece) has more to say:
He also points out that Sanders continues to trip over unionization:
Not to mention that is bad for democracy that institutions that work to enforce the monopoly of strength of the State get partisan. That's the voice of bitter experience talking.
They don't really have a choice on the latter, do they? The DMCA doesn't really give them a lot of wiggle room.
YouTube goes well beyond what they're legally required to do.