Police Unions in America

[WhiteCrow]

I'm not too sure how I feel about the unionisation of police. You could argue that because they are civil service members, like firefighters, and should so get the right to unionise.

On the other hand is the argument that they are the right arm of the super rich and therefore the oppressors, removing the need for a union.

Thoughts?

[Sewer Socialist]

They are on the other side of the class struggle, and exclusively serve the interests of capital. And, even worse, they never fail to support the racist and murderous officers who manage to do something horrible in front of a camera and face prosecution.

[Aslan]

All a police ''union'' will do is create a apologist tribunal that will serve the government in defending their racist actions. You do not need a police union because the police are the main foe of the lower classes. Basically No-one is oppressing the oppressors, therefore no union necessary.

[Citizen]

Police unions aren't unions. They're more like police clans, or police frats (which really is what they call themselves –– "fraternal orders"). They have no sympathy for the labor movement, and others have pointed correctly that they were created for the sole purpose of protecting the interests of capitalists and property. Officers with any conscience who've left the cult have talked about how police forces carry out their own self-selection and make sure people with the wrong politics don't stay for very long.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Police unions should not be supported. They push for laws many times that give them power to lock people up (think war on drugs, some police unions are against it but not enough), laws that make it extremely hard to prosecute cops for anything, etc, etc. Also look at the fact that when collective bargaining rights are being eliminated for public workers by conservatives they often make an exemption for the police like Scott Walker did in Wisconsin because they realize they're going to have to have the cops on their side to defeat working class struggles. The pigs are enemies, plain and simple, workers shouldn't support them becoming organized in any fashion.

[RedKobra]

They can have a union but the workers should have nothing whatsoever to do with them. They will always and forever fight for the ruling class, it is their essence. Ideas about winning them to our side are suicidally stupid. The police are not the same as the Russian army in 1917 who were rightly needed by the revolution. The vast majority (I believe) of the soldiers were conscripts and unwilling soldiers. Police officers and modern soldiers are not there under duress, they are racist, authoritarian, homicidal reactionaries who will die for the bourgeoisie if we ever came to insurrection. Screw them, every last one.

[John Nada]

Can you even imagine the CIA, FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, Secret Service, ect. just joining progressive proletarian protests and strikes en mass? Have they ever showed solidarity with proletarian or even labor aristocratic unions? That image does not compute. Only time pigs will turn up for strikes and protests is to bust out the batons, tear gas and rubber bullets(if not lead) to break picket lines, protect scabs and bourgeois property, or as UC.

Cops aren't proletarians. Hell, not even labor aristocrats. Their "unions" is as far from a workers' union as bourgeois orgs like the Chamber of Commerce, if not a gang. Cop "unions" will never show solidarity and will gladly attack striking workers, let alone oppressed peoples. They're relation with the bourgeoisie is not one based on exploitation, but a parasitic one as their armed enforcer of capitalism and oppressor of the masses. They're lumpenproletarian gangs, who's allegiance is firmly with the bourgeoisie. Possibly the most reactionary stratum of the lumpenproletariat. Though individuals here and there might just realized how fucked up their career is and quit, it's impossible to for them to achieve revolutionary potential and work as agents of the bourgeoisie. They're as likely to switch sides and commit class suicide as an imperialist-bourgeois.

[Comrade Jacob]

lol "police unions". It would be cool if they all went on strike tho.

[BIXX]

lol "police unions". It would be cool if they all went on strike tho.

It does happen. I'm not sure how many in the cities where it takes place but apparently it's enough to put pressure on the city

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

lol "police unions". It would be cool if they all went on strike tho.

It wouldn't. When cops strike they strike for more guns, more authority and less oversight.

Supporting cops or screws means crossing the class line, period. No to police unions.

[mutualaid]

We need to move toward forms of community policing that don't rely on the state's arm of authority, that sort of thing could look like a local trade union of sorts, though in the interests of the local community and not for the capitalist state.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

We need to move toward forms of community policing that don't rely on the state's arm of authority, that sort of thing could look like a local trade union of sorts, though in the interests of the local community and not for the capitalist state.

Any sort of police is "the state's arm of authority". "Community police" already exists in various states, or has existed and, surprise surprise, it enforces the most backward social norms - community police combine the repressive functions of police with a petit-bourgeois, "family values", "God and country" mentality.

We need to go beyond policing - first through a universal workers' militia, and then beyond that, into the abolition of all political force.

[mutualaid]

Any sort of police is "the state's arm of authority". "Community police" already exists in various states, or has existed and, surprise surprise, it enforces the most backward social norms - community police combine the repressive functions of police with a petit-bourgeois, "family values", "God and country" mentality.

We need to go beyond policing - first through a universal workers' militia, and then beyond that, into the abolition of all political force.

Your definition of community policing ("family values" "god") is not mine; I compared it to a trade union for a reason, because it should look like a workers militia. Until class conflict is eliminated, some form of self-policing is going to be necessary, whether we like it or not. It's better that individuals and communities take on that responsibility than leave it entirely to the capitalist state - as I suggested above, doing so would serve to undermine the state's authority.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Your definition of community policing ("family values" "god") is not mine; I compared it to a trade union for a reason, because it should look like a workers militia. Until class conflict is eliminated, some form of self-policing is going to be necessary, whether we like it or not. It's better that individuals and communities take on that responsibility than leave it entirely to the capitalist state - as I suggested above, doing so would serve to undermine the state's authority.

It's not "my definition"; it's what happens when you give "community" (an ill-defined term if there ever was one; capitalism has destroyed the old pre-capitalist community based on fixed residence, and the world is better off for it) leaders police powers. Just look at the examples in Mexico (http://www.latinpost.com/articles/33210/20150121/u-s-vigilante-leader-nestora-salgado-receives-support-for-release.htm), or the actions of the PIRA and IRPS in Ireland.

Any police force under bourgeois rule will serve the bourgeoisie and the capitalist state. Even if it's "local", "indigenous", "communal", whatever. The point is not to build a nicer capitalism (although having local cops is not nicer capitalism, it's the same old shit) but to overthrow the bourgeois state.

[Emmett Till]

Your definition of community policing ("family values" "god") is not mine; I compared it to a trade union for a reason, because it should look like a workers militia. Until class conflict is eliminated, some form of self-policing is going to be necessary, whether we like it or not. It's better that individuals and communities take on that responsibility than leave it entirely to the capitalist state - as I suggested above, doing so would serve to undermine the state's authority.

No, much better to leave it entirely to the capitalist state. "Community policing" means creating popular auxiliaries for the capitalist state. It coopts the population for the needs of the ruling class.

Every class society, including a transitional society under the "dictatorship of the proletariat," needs an armed force to enforce the rule of the dominant class and maintain social stability by force, as any society made up of different classes will be rent by class conflicts.

Any force maintaining order must inevitably direct its blows against those least likely to want to obey the basic social rules, namely the oppressed classes. It inevitably will, simply to perform its function of maintaining order, commit abuses against oppressed classes and ethnic groups. So let the capitalists take the heat for that.

And when we come to power, most likely our workers forces for law and order will abuse members of the overthrown classes from time to time, certainly happened in the Soviet Union, even in the early years under Lenin and Trotsky. And we'll have to take the heat for that, such is life.

[mutualaid]

No, much better to leave it entirely to the capitalist state. "Community policing" means creating popular auxiliaries for the capitalist state. It coopts the population for the needs of the ruling class.

Every class society, including a transitional society under the "dictatorship of the proletariat," needs an armed force to enforce the rule of the dominant class and maintain social stability by force, as any society made up of different classes will be rent by class conflicts.

Any force maintaining order must inevitably direct its blows against those least likely to want to obey the basic social rules, namely the oppressed classes. It inevitably will, simply to perform its function of maintaining order, commit abuses against oppressed classes and ethnic groups. So let the capitalists take the heat for that.

And when we come to power, most likely our workers forces for law and order will abuse members of the overthrown classes from time to time, certainly happened in the Soviet Union, even in the early years under Lenin and Trotsky. And we'll have to take the heat for that, such is life.

I'm not really interested in debating definitions, let's call it a "worker's militia" then ... the point remains, how does a revolutionary movement manage authority within itself as it struggles against capitalism. orwell took up this question in homage to catalonia and you're mistaken to think that we should do nothing: people within the movement will occasionally act unjustly, and it's the movement's responsibility to deal with that, which requires exercising authority.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm not really interested in debating definitions, let's call it a "worker's militia" then ... the point remains, how does a revolutionary movement manage authority within itself as it struggles against capitalism. orwell took up this question in homage to catalonia and you're mistaken to think that we should do nothing: people within the movement will occasionally act unjustly, and it's the movement's responsibility to deal with that, which requires exercising authority.

No, it's not the movement's responsibility to act as amateur cops, and if anyone has proven themselves incapable of judging other people, it's leftists. Leftist organisations have control commissions for those that are harming the organisation, but that's a matter of basic precaution. The point is to overthrow capitalism, not to build a perfect society in miniature. A perfect society in any case would be one without a police or any sort of state authority.

[mutualaid]

No, it's not the movement's responsibility to act as amateur cops, and if anyone has proven themselves incapable of judging other people, it's leftists. Leftist organisations have control commissions for those that are harming the organisation, but that's a matter of basic precaution. The point is to overthrow capitalism, not to build a perfect society in miniature. A perfect society in any case would be one without a police or any sort of state authority.

I think this particular point is important for anarchists - which may be why we disagree; If an individual witnesses an immoral act, he or she has an individual responsibility to deal with that. Would you do nothing? Or call the police? Clearly, there has to be an alternative, for example a worker's militia or some other way to manage authority that does not rely on the state's police force.

[Emmett Till]

I'm not really interested in debating definitions, let's call it a "worker's militia" then ... the point remains, how does a revolutionary movement manage authority within itself as it struggles against capitalism. orwell took up this question in homage to catalonia and you're mistaken to think that we should do nothing: people within the movement will occasionally act unjustly, and it's the movement's responsibility to deal with that, which requires exercising authority.

You mean in a revolutionary situation, when you have dual power between the capitalists and the workers?

Well, if you have an alternative power, that alternative power will need to enforce workers' law and order, including against refractory workers. Just like during strikes, the picketers need to take action against scabs.

In Catalonia, the anarchists dropped their theoretical opposition to the state, and either like the moderate anarchists became props for the Republican capitalist state, or like Durruti, accepted the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in deeds if not always in words.

As new converts to proletarian dictatorship, anarchists did indeed commit many embarrassing abuses, as in the famous case where a particularly obnoxious Catholic priest was crucified, to his fanatically masochistic delight.

But that's all music for the future. The issue is whether we should call for "community policing" right now, and the answer is definitely no.

[Emmett Till]

I think this particular point is important for anarchists - which may be why we disagree; If an individual witnesses an immoral act, he or she has an individual responsibility to deal with that. Would you do nothing? Or call the police? Clearly, there has to be an alternative, for example a worker's militia or some other way to manage authority that does not rely on the state's police force.

Well, the third alternative is obvious. Take your gun out of your holster and take individual responsibility to deal with the situation, like a good anarchist should.

There are practical problems with this obviously, especially in countries with gun control laws. In most situations either calling the cops or doing nothing is wiser more practical. Calling a "community militia" would be likely to have the same results as calling the police.

In America, instead of risking racist or other atrocities committed by well trained policemen, instead you would probably get racist or other atrocities committed by well meaning but undertrained militia volunteers.

[DOOM]

Your definition of community policing ("family values" "god") is not mine; I compared it to a trade union for a reason, because it should look like a workers militia. Until class conflict is eliminated, some form of self-policing is going to be necessary, whether we like it or not. It's better that individuals and communities take on that responsibility than leave it entirely to the capitalist state - as I suggested above, doing so would serve to undermine the state's authority.

And how exactly is this less antagonistic to the working class and its cause? What would the 'people's police' do when they're not harassing workers and defending property relations? The main function of the police isn't to catch the big bad guys running around Manhattan on a killing spree in the most cinematic way possible, but rather to be the extended arm of the bourgeoisie and to control and defend the relations set by capital violently.
This is exactly the same line of argumentation that calls for workers to work in coops, because it'd be better to be exploited by yourself than by crony capitalists, even though you'll sink into poverty because coop are terribly incompetitive. Yey!

[BIXX]

Oh man the people advocating for policing in this thread