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.
Swift's Corner 