Generally, as a progressively minded person, I find myself favoring unions - after all, beyond government agency's, it's really the only way for employees to stand up for their rights. Over the last year or so, after many seemingly waning years, unionization appears to be gaining steam. A number of Starbucks shops have created individual unions - it seems like it's only a matter of time until this becomes a reality for all Starbucks employees, no? And even though it's only just begun, considering the size of Amazon and the well documented poor treatment of it's employees, it would seem as though it's only a matter of time until a union forms for their factory workers.
And again - to me - this all sounds like a good thing.
Then you get to something like police unions and suddenly all of the positives are overwhelmed by all of the negatives. Sure, it's great that these unions look after their employees and that they have so much power, but unlike with other workers, so much of what they stand for compromises the safety and security of those who they are sworn to protect.
Police unions are so committed to the status quo that they are unwilling and unable to consider alternatives. The Daily podcast today had an entire episode focused on stopping pulling over drivers for minor traffic stops, which are an "enforcement" technique used to question a potential suspect of something more devious. Subsequently, people of color are disproportionately pulled over with no tangible impact to driving down crime. In fact, there is at least one town in which the Chief of Police actively told his officers to stop pulling over drivers for minor infractions and instead focusing on serious crime. This was all to the benefit of that community.
Of course, since it was not in line with standard police training, the unions dismissed the practice as a fluke.
I don't pretend to have the answers for policing, but it's clear to me that unions need to have caps on their level of influence and what they can control.
Thank you for reading my random thoughts on unions!
