To prevent another George Floyd case, we need to get rid of police unions

The wave of anti-police brutality protests that swept the US in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police has led to a massive cultural shift in favor of police reform. The Minneapolis city council has since announced its intent to dismantle the city’s police force and rebuild something new in its wake. Even National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell has admitted that he was “wrong” when not listening to players like Colin Kaepernick, who called attention to police brutality by kneeling during the pre-game singing of the national anthem.

But no reform can happen without demolishing the police unions that often serve as the biggest obstacle to accountability.

In Florida, a 2019 University of Chicago study found that police unionization resulted in a 40 percent increase in violent misconduct incidents among county sheriff’s offices between 1996 and 2015. Researchers noted that terms in collective bargaining agreements hindered the imposition of discipline on problematic officers, and organized police union muscle successfully opposed police reform efforts in the state legislature. But the problematic nature of police unions stretches far beyond one state.

With more than 16,000 police departments throughout the US, it’s difficult to determine what percentage of officers are unionized. But according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), approximately three-quarters of all municipal police departments were unionized as of 2006, and that rate is likely much higher now, according to a 2018 Bloomberg report. Just as with the University of Chicago study, the BJS noted that rate of force complaints were “higher than [police departments] not authorizing collective bargaining” by a rate of 53 complaints for unionized police departments to 23 for non-union police departments.

Even the US Department of Justice admitted in a 2012 memo that bureaucratic roadblocks put in place by the Portland Police Bureau’s (PPB) union contract largely prevented officers from being held accountable, despite the DOJ finding a “pattern or practice of unnecessary and unreasonable use of force” in analyzing officers’ interactions with residents who have mental illness. One section of the PPB’s collective bargaining agreement stipulates that officers can’t be questioned about shooting a citizen until a 48-hour window has passed. The DOJ memo wryly notes that “it is difficult to conceive” the police extending that same 48-hour window to a citizen involved in a shooting.

A more recent example of toxic police union culture can be seen in Philadelphia, in which Inspector Joseph Bologna was recently seen in a viral video beating a peaceful student protester in the back of the head with a baton and was subsequently charged with felony aggravated assault. John McNesby — Bologna’s union president — called the charges a “slap in the face to every police officer in the city of Philadelphia.” Another video of Bologna turning himself in on Monday shows him surrounded by his colleagues who are all cheering him on as he walks out of his union lodge.

In most workplaces, any incompetent employees who do their job poorly or bring public shame to their employer are typically fired. If a worker is part of a union, the worker may be able to file an appeal to challenge their dismissal. But police unions go above and beyond in their efforts to keep violent and incompetent police officers on the payroll. A 2017 Washington Post investigation found that since 2006, the largest municipal police departments fired 1,881 officers for “misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust.” However, nearly a quarter of those officers were later rehired thanks to rigorous appeals processes outlined in their union contracts.

As a socialist, I normally defend the existence of unions in the workplace as a way of giving workers a collective voice when negotiating for better pay and working conditions. Throughout history, unions have often proved necessary when large, powerful corporate employers seek to squeeze their labor force and hoard the profits for themselves. But when it comes to the particular case of police unions, I can’t help but agree with my libertarian co-author that they protect violent and incompetent police officers and make it exceedingly difficult to hold problematic officers accountable.

Any concern over whether or not police officers are workers who deserve the protection of unions can be dismissed when examining how little solidarity police unions have with other workers organizing for better wages and dignity in the workplace. Unlike other unionized professions, police have served as reliable strike-breakers for more than a century. According to the Police Studies department at Eastern Kentucky University (the first accredited law enforcement academy in the United States), police strike-breaking was either done by “extreme violence” or by “trivial public order offenses,” in which union organizers and protest leaders were detained and jailed under vaguely written ordinances like vagrancy. Ever since the days of slave patrols, police have been agents of the bosses to protect their private property, even if it means killing and maiming their fellow workers.

For some activists, police reform may look like the proposed abolition of police altogether, like what’s happening in Minneapolis. For others, it may be a defunding of police departments and redistributing that money toward sustainable city planning, mental health counseling, public education, and other underfunded programs. But however one may envision it, police reform won’t happen until mayors, city councils, state legislatures, and governors show toughness in this critical moment and work together to bust police unions for good.

Carl Gibson is a freelance journalis. Follow him on Twitter @crgibs

Kevin Ryan is the founder of ‘Unbiased America’