> For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions.

Police unions don't have the power to stop state prosecutors from filing charges on officers, or the power to stop a jury from finding an officer guilty, or the power to stop a judge from sending a cop to prison for their crimes. Those are the main problems standing in the way of police accountability.

Where police unions do end up giving too much protection for police it's in contracts that get approved by government officials when they shouldn't have been. Police unions can ask for unreasonable things, but when they do our governments should be telling them to fuck off instead of rubber stamping whatever they ask for.

Police, like almost all workers, still need unions though. Police can still be subjected to things like unpaid overtime, unsafe working conditions, insufficient training, low wages, and poor benefits. Police should be able to unionize to prevent being exploited. Local governments should refuse to cave to their unions unreasonable demands such as those that prohibit anonymous complaints, or purge disciplinary records to prevent identifying repeat offenders, or reject body cameras, or allow officers to use paid vacation time to cover unpaid suspensions.

Police unions get a lot of attention as being the main thing preventing police accountability but they really aren't. The problems are much deeper and eliminating the unions will not solve them.

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GuinansEyebrows an hour ago | parent [-]

> Police unions can ask for unreasonable things, but when they do our governments should be telling them to fuck off instead of rubber stamping whatever they ask for.

the rub: police unions are highly political machines and heavily involved in electing rubber-stamp politicians. it's a quid-pro-quo relationship that we seem to have a very hard time breaking out of in the united states.

re: police requiring unions: i have to disagree with you. american policing originated from two antilabor arms: slavecatchers and union-busters. they wield power over non-police union labor and implement it on every level from the individual to the systemic. they are class traitors by choice and by definition and do not deserve protection, because they are the physical arm of the body we require protection from.

	▲	autoexec 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It falls on We the People to make sure our elected officials are working for us and not giving police unions whatever they want, but we will probably need election finance reforms to make it harder for the unions to influence the outcomes. Police departments have already been found to do things like force officers to work an unsafe number of hours, commit wage theft in the form of unpaid overtime, engage in harassing and inappropriate behavior including sexual harassment, and the use of tasers on officers. Officers need unions to prevent abuse and exploitation and to ensure that they have protection from retaliation when they report on their fellow officers. Even abusers are sometimes abused. If we want good, honest people to work in police departments, we need to create work environments where they can and will want to. We can chase out those who aren't fit for the job as we go while still leaving good officers protected where they should be.