Category: Blogs!

A Union Man who disagrees with police unions

For about two years, I worked as a Shop Steward within my local Post Office Union. I’ve had an in-depth experience with what a union does, how it operates, and the importance of its existence for a workforce. I have represented my coworkers in various negotiations between them and management, namely to keep them from being disciplined or to ensure that their overtime hours are noted for the next paycheck. In my time as a Steward, I’ve become a devout follower of the concept that is a ‘worker’s union’. I am and will always be a diehard union supporter.

That said, I’ve been looking into police unions, and I have to say something that does piss off my coworkers and puts me in an interesting spot between the rock and the hard place:

While Unions are Great, the Police No Longer Deserve Theirs

Before I dive into this opinion piece, I am going to do the annoying thing and talk about the history of police unions. I like giving as much context as I can in a debate (probably why no one debates me: it takes too damn long). I’ll do as much of cliffnote’s version as my nerd-brain will allow.

In the United States of America, policing goes all the way back, to the point of night watches in the fledging colony villages, as far back as the 1630’s. These were people who agreed to go about the towns at night to look for gambling and prostitution, but this would evolve and change as villages and towns became cities. In 1838, Boston founded its own police force that was organized, uniformed, and on-duty.  With that idea in the zeitgeist, we began having police forces being established in other cities, ensuring public safety of persons and property.

Sidenote: The concept of police in the South, as it came into being, was centered on making sure the slave trade continued running smoothly, and I continue to be mortified at my regions’ history.

Enter the Labor Movement and all of the whacky (to the upper class) concepts that came along with it!

Again, we go to Boston, but we’re in 1919, now. I want you to take a moment and imagine this time: World War I has ended, the United States went from a backwater nation to the banking capital of the West, soldiers were coming home, the October Revolution (Bolshevik Revolution) is raging in Russia, and the Spanish Flu is sweeping through the planet. The world is changing at a rapid pace and no one quite knows what to expect next.

(Kind of like modern day. Listen to the historians, people.)

In all of this, we have policemen realizing that they’re being required to work 72 hour weeks for little pay, with few workers’ rights, and overall a rather shitty existence. As a postman, I can’t help but relate to that mindset. They were not guaranteed anything like retirment, a fair wage, or proper treatment from their supervisors. Again, something I can relate to. So, what to do? Unionize.

Of course, once you unionize and demand the higher-ups actually listen to you, you get all kinds of shit. In 1919, the Boston Police Department joined the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and started a chapter for themselves. This went as well as you’d expect for the time. This was considered to be a Bolshevik-minded thing! How dare these policemen actually demand better working conditions! You get the point. Edwin Curtis, the Commisioner of the time, refused to speak to the union organizers, suspending them and 11 other officers, and the rest of the force was told that no such thing as unionizing was going to happen.

Welp, shit got real soon after. There was a strike among the police force, and Boston went somewhat insane. The Massachussets State Guard was called in to replace the police force, which went about as well as you’d think. They weren’t used to dealing with rowdy crowds. People were shot. 9 people died.

And so the world learned that police were needed, but they needed to be listened to about working conditions.

That was 1919. Let’s jump to today.

In the now-over-100 years since that time, the police force has ready access to the firepower it believes it needs to handle the level of crime that persists in this country. Whatever the crime, they have the power and authority (two different things in this statement) to handle it, and they believe it to be absolutely necessary, and I would agree to that, if I believed that every city is dealing with the kind of criminals we see in movies.

And we’ve arrived at the point that I, a stalwart union-man and all-around rabble-rouser for worker’s rights, will put my foot down and say “that’s enough”.

We are now at the point when the local police force (my town is around 45,000) has access to military-grade armaments and vehicles. They are protected by the authority invested unto them to observe the people and enforce the law, and when their personal judgement results in a non-white person being killed for a minor infraction, their union will fight tooth-and-nail to make sure, at minimum, they will keep their job.

On paper, I get that. It’s exactly what I’ve done as a union steward. But when I’ve done it, it was because someone misdelivered a package that cost $30 or were 2 minutes late one too many times, or (my real most common problem to deal with) because they argued that they needed overtime to deal with an overburdened route. I know that fight. I’ve fought that fight.

Do you know what happens when a postman steals or dumps mail? They’re fired and most likely jailed, and the union doesn’t do shit for them. That’s a fuck-up that is common sense: Don’t do that.

In these modern days, the police have access to more ways to kill people than the average citizen, and God help that citizen if the officer is young, or nervous, or has a prejudice or rascist attitude.

If a Postman has a rascist attitude to a customer, they don’t have a job. They might, might, get the money they put into their retirement. But the postal workers of the United States don’t have the ability to decide, at a whim, that someone is going to die, even though they do get attacked and killed. They’re not allowed to carry firearms and have to use de-escalation for everything from a barking dog to a crazed individual wanting to steal the parcels in their truck.

If a Policeman harms or kills someone, in the line of duty, whether it was justified or not, their union will step in and fight to keep their job. Even if the person who was killed was an unarmed black man who tried to use a $20 note that turned out to be fake and was in circulation.

Sorry, fellow people in blue. You don’t deserve your union represenation anymore. You’re not a protector but a low-grade soldier that doesn’t realize it’s fighting a war that doesn’t exist. I’ve worked routes considered “high crime”, and I went into those neighborhoods without bullet-proof vests, without guns, sometimes without dog-spray. I’ve been a fixture of the local community. I’ve walked into gang fights and talked the folks down (had a certified letter for a leader to sign) and walked away perfectly fine, even after having a gun pointed at me.

If you want your union to actually mean something, maybe be something worth protecting.

Word Count, Kung Fu, and D&D

Probably one of the most frustrating things to my life is that I love my day job, even though it hinders me in my pursuit of other goals. If you’re curious, my alter-ego is that of a mailman with a walking route. I’m one of those awkward and quiet postmen that just shows up on your property, puts mail in the box and drops off your parcels, and walks far away before you realize I was there. My daily routine has me covering about 12 miles (19 kilometers) with near 70 pounds (31.75 kilograms) slung across my shoulders, so it’s a safe bet that by the time I make it home, I’m dead-tired.

But wait, I do more.
After the New Year, I promised myself I’d do three things:
1: I’d get to my writing after a 3-month hiatus (the Heavy Season of Mail)
2: I’d go back to Kung Fu training, now that my children were grown enough.
3: I’d start my Gaming Sessions again.

Now, the months of January and February were rough starts to the first, and I know why: I was so damned tired at the end of the day, and if I had either coffee or beer (my two favorite evening drinks) I’d find myself asleep at my desk, waking up at 1AM and staggering to bed for the next day. It’s not a healthy practice, but it’s one I can’t always plan for. How do you plan for “passing out at your desk and handling paperwork”? An easy solution to this is switching my evening beverage up, so it’s just enough of an odddity that I have something to focus on. A cup of Earl Grey tea does wonders when you’re seeking self-discipline, I’ve learned. Brits, y’all are on to something.
That said, I’ve managed some 1,400 words this week. That’s not much, but it’s better than a few other weeks I’ve tried. I won’t be adding more to it for the night because at this moment, I’m way too exhausted to make the attempt, and I did tell myself I’d work on this thing today. I’ll have to settle for some note-taking and outlining, either in my current story or one of the others that I’m playing with.

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My late-night easy-listening selections

I also told myself that I’d get back Kung Fu training, which was not all that difficult to do, to be honest. The kwoon (school) is fairly close to my workplace, and my Sifu is a postal customer, so it’s good odds that I’ll talk to him almost every day. I went back in January, after almost two years of absense. I was put on probation (no sash) and treated as a new student (back to basics!) until I showed that I was comfortable with my training. I was put through training again and, after almost two months, I was tested for the next level.

And I passed!


Since I’ve come back to training, my kwoon has stepped up in its online presence, and even has its own blog site. I’ve been asked to write articles for it, which is something I’ve taken to with way more care than I usually do. My writing on Kung Fu is chock-full of philosophy and emphasis on Eastern religions, which unfortunately makes the fundamentalists in my area nervous, so I’m having to watch what I write.

Finally, I promised that I’d have D&D sessions, again. That’s one that deserves its own spinoff, and will likely have its own page with a bunch of stories, but for the moment it’s a blank-canvas campaign. That means that I had put a small village on a blank poster-sized sheet and told my players to come up with characters/backgrounds and I’d figure out where they went.

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This is the result of some 50 questions! Never ask the DM about history!

The D&D game is set for Saturday night February 29. If I have the time and energy, I’ll dive into the specifics of this party, but at the moment, they’re in the hamlet of Eisenstadt and the local brewmeister is wary of them, but willing to take their coin, and might have a possible job for them.

With that said, I’m stupidly exhausted and falling asleep as I type. I’m off bed. Take care, readers. Be kind to each other.

Back at it, again.

Well, here I am, once again thinking that there will be people out there who find my blogging interesting. Who knows? Maybe that’s true, or maybe someone typed ‘Swift’ into their search bar and this actually pinged their results.

Either way, welcome to my little corner.

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Jealous, aren’t ya?

Of course, that’s a picture of the desk when it needs to be presentable. All of the crap that usually litters it is just behind me on the table, but you get the idea. This is where I am, most evenings. When the kids go to bed and my wife is readying to turn in for the night, but I need to wax creative or just have too much going on in my mind, I’m right here, plunking away at either the laptop (when it works) or the tablet. That, or I’m turned around at the table, with gaming books spread out everywhere and three different notepads in front of me, as I try to figure out the next Big Challenge for my gaming party.

Occasionally, there are times when I don’t have the gumption (good word, that one) to work on the novel, or I’ve plotted everything I could possibly have plotted in my upcoming game’s plot, but I’m still waxing creative. I had thought to actually write shorts based in the game universes I have running, which admittedly would be a lot of fun, but I keep putting that idea off. Let’s be honest: I’m not all that certain my current project will be published, and it’d take some serious effort from my fellow nerds to be so meta that they’d read a fictional short story based on a D&D game (or worse, the Star Wars or Shadowrun campaigns). Along with that, I keep getting writing prompts, sometimes from friends saying “Hey! This looks cool and you should try it!”, or sometimes from the Internet being the horrible temptress that it is and saying “Hey! You call yourself a writer! Look at these challenges and prove yourself to somebody, anybody, maybe even yourself!”

The Internet is evil. Not for the reasons that fundamentalists give it, but because it gives me so many ideas without increasing my life span to write them all.

Normally, I’d put these ideas and prompts onto the back-burner. After all, I’m writing a book, again. It’s kinda something I want to finish. I have campaigns to write. Hell, I have letters to write, grievances to write, recipes to write….you get the point, I’m good at only one thing in the creative area, and even that is debatable.

Funny thing is, I used to also have a blog site. I kind of forgot about it over the years, but I also forgot about the annual bill that keeps it up and running. It was low enough that according to my checkbook, it just looked like I had gotten my math wrong at some point. But no, it’s still here. Anyway, I used to write about the odd, inane things that interested me in my early- to mid-20’s, and I’m highly amused that people either took me seriously or had a real interest in those old writings. The difference between those writings and this: I know I’m not all that special, and I’m probably amusing enough to get your interest.

When I received an email that the old site had been visited, my first thought was “Why is that thing still functioning?!” I went to it, read through it, and switched it to private, because…*shudder*…that is some horrible and boring work. But I wanted to have a place to put up the other work I keep telling myself to write. I know it’d be good for my craft to do so.

Hence, my little Writing Corner here.