The labor movement should eject police unions

When I saw the video of a police officer strangling George Floyd while his buddies looked on, I thought: "bet Minneapolis has a doozie of a white supremacist police union." I recalled Philando Castile, shot by a cop in 2016 while his girlfriend streamed the encounter on Facebook.

When it came out that Officer Derek Chauvin had been involved in a previous police killing and had collected at least 17 complaints in a two decade career, it seemed to me certain that Minneapolis must have just such a corrupt police union -- the sort that defends its members as if they were soldiers in a war with a hostile public. San Franciscans are all too aware of what that's like. But I didn't know the underlying history.

Nancy LeTourneau does know the history. She points to a Star Tribune account from last year of what happened when Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey tried to implement new training to reduce police violence.

... the union that represents the city’s roughly 900 rank-and-file police officers announced that it is partnering with a national police organization to offer free “warrior-style” training for any officer who wants it.

According to a news release posted to the Law Officer website, the free online training — valued at $55,000 a year — is offered to officers for as long as Frey remains mayor. The training, which covers a range of issues, from “officer survival” and leadership to fitness and de-escalation, was designed to ensure that officers could “return home each day to their family regardless of the dangers that they may face and the ignorance of some politicians,” the release said.

... Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the police union, was undeterred on Wednesday, saying in an interview that he consulted with the union’s attorneys, who said Frey’s directive was unlawful. Kroll also defended the training, saying, “It’s not about killing, it’s about surviving.”

The union teaches cops fear and recoil from Minneapolis citizens. Racism does the rest and George Lloyd is dead.

Police unions too often serve as poisonous enclaves of white bitterness against social changes which decenter white men; racism makes black men prime targets of these empowered guys with guns and grudges. Other people of color, women of all colors, and gender queers can also find themselves on the wrong side of the police gang's war against perceived dangerous civilians.

Kim Kelly, writing in The New Republic, calls out labor movement complicity in this.

Unfortunately, union protection plays no small role in keeping cops like Chauvin ... out on the streets. Collective bargaining agreements for police generally include normal language around wages and benefits but can also act as an unbreachable firewall between the cops and those they have injured. Typically, such contracts are chock full of special protections that are negotiated behind closed doors. Employment contract provisions also insulate police from any meaningful accountability for their actions and rig any processes hearings in their favor; fired cops are able to appeal and win their jobs back, even after the most egregious offenses. ...

Ultimately, police unions protect their own, and the contracts they bargain keep killers, domestic abusers, and white supremacists in positions of deadly power—or provide them with generous pensions should they leave. The only solidarity they show is for their fellow police officers; other workers are mere targets.

So should these organized white supremacist protection rackets be counted as part of organized labor? Most are, as affiliates of the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). Kelly argues that, if the AFL-CIO is serious about standing up for the actual existing working class of the country, so heavily Black and Latinx, it should kick out the cop unions (and the Border Patrol union as well.)

It’s imperative to take action now. The AFL-CIO has a chance to atone for its past racial transgressions by moving toward a more just, equitable, and intersectional labor movement. Disaffiliating with the IUPA is only a start, but it would be an important step in the right direction. The decision would draw a line in the sand and show the federation’s broader membership that union leaders truly believe that Black lives matter—and that the working class deserves to feel safe and protected in our own communities.

That's a tough ask -- these police unions are politically powerful. But who are they powerful for anyway?