sigh
Cop unions are not unions
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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i mean they are unions, they're just reactionary unions and tools of the bourgeoisie. Rather than pretending they're not unions at all we should just recognize that not all unions are good. Eugene Debs gave a very famous speech about "craft consciousness" and how some unions hold back the proletariat by protecting their narrows craft interests rather than the broader class interests of the workers. This line to me seems more logical than trying to deny that cop unions are unions, which just makes us sound like we're contradicting ourselves.
You raise a good point. My gut reaction is to bring up they the function of police is to protect the bourgeois class rather than the proletariat, rather then functioning to lift up workers. I think my visceral, tangible hatred for cops is tainting my view here.
I wouldn't say your view is tainted, just that you're saying the correct thing, but in a way that might confuse people not familiar with our ideology. I'm just putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't understand socialism yet. In a way you're absolutely right. Cop unions aren't unions in the same sense that national socialists aren't socialists and urinal cakes aren't cakes.
urinal cakes aren’t cakes.
Uh oh
Some unions protect the job, others protect the worker
*proletariat class
exactly
Not every association to support a group is a union. Yours is one way, but we could also say that unions in the sense of labour union / Gewerkschaft means something different. Both ways and likely others are possible.
they are but cops aren't workers
they are workers, but are class antagonists of the proletariat
The UnionBuster Union does not count as a Union
Union of the United Capitalists and Landowners.
Well sure airplanes are necessary to cross an ocean in a reasonable amount of time but they're also responsible for 9/11. When are we going to address that?
Libs stop undermining leftism challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Even reddit liberals think cop unions are bad lol.
you say unions are good and yet the Torture Nexus Technicians Union is bad, checkmate tankie
The "We" in this post are liberals and they won't address it because they also depend on cops to be abusive to people. Us, on the other hand, will readily address the cop unions.
The power of police unions proves that other unions are simply not armed enough
"when are we going to address how I'm a radlib without class consciousness" lol
Which unions tho?
Cops: *go on strike*
Nothing: *changes*
Bourgeois: "Give them everything they ask for or society will collapse!"
Yeah, police are the enforcement tools of the owner class, designated extra privileges to give them the impression that they're somehow distinct from the proletariat. They'd have too much power even without unions. Listen to politicians who urge corrupt cops to stay on payroll because of literally getting the "rotten apple" metaphor backwards. I'm not really sure how you can judge some unions good or bad, when ACAB is a fact. Just, get rid of the police and leave this hypothetical to historians.
Solidarity amongst the oppressed is good
Solidarity amongst the oppressors is bad
I already told you I support unions, you don't have to sell it to me.
How do liberals deal with the cognitive dissonance of "There is no owning class that conspires for their class interests" and "The only union the politicians support is the police union"?
The politicians and their benefactors don't support unions for service workers. They don't support them for the manufacturers or the laborers that operate critical infrastructure. But they do support the cop unions. How can they dance around class warfare as the answer to this conundrum? They must just avoid thinking about it too hard.
Maybe it's just a Vancouver and not a Canada thing, but I never thought our police were that bad.
That might be true in relative terms, it is also likely showing that you are in a somewhat privileged position, does ignore their structural impact (i.e. forced evictions actions against houseless and soon to be unhoused comrades, immigrants etc.), but also ignores historic context, their support and enforcement of colonial actions, against single mothers, against neurodivergent people, against LGBTQ comrades and them guarding their fellow cops.
It might also be unaware of how the Canadian riot cops act at demonstrations.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/g20-protesters-clash-with-vancouver-police-1.906581 As example. Some of our queer and alike allies do not want police at their protests: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/no-more-police-at-vancouver-pride-as-organizers-join-call-to-defund-vpd-1.5607249
CW
So it might be interesting to write in a spoiler tag (if it gets long as to not de-rail this thread), why you have that sentiment and try to seek out some voices contradicting your point of view. For example in my city the police regularly jails people for not having tickets in public transport. Multiple hundreds, often people without the means or abilities to deal with the fines are effectively put into a debt tower. Would you find the police is "that bad" then, or when they use force to deport a person, by entering their house at night, restricting them violently and then putting them on a plane with a for them uncertain destination?
These issues are an extension of the government position though, right?
As a cop in a police union, your job is to enforce the law level-handedly, not to decide what the law should be. As a worker, that is both your right and your expectation. To blame the police unions for following the spirit and letter of the law essentially undermines the role of law enforcement.
The primary criticisms I have against police (in the US, in Toronto, etc.) Is that their enforcement of the law is clearly biased for or against certain demographics and that abuse is covered by the police union. From what I can tell, that isn't really the case in Vancouver because of the extremely large immigrant minority population in the city and the relatively robust system of police oversight in the OPCC.
I'll admit it's not perfect (in particular, that the likelihood of criminal consequences for police malfeasance is still way too low) and I'll admit that my interactions with police have been from a rather privileged background, but I do think police unions should be evaluated from their role of protecting workers' rights and maintaining worker integrity rather than as an extension of criticism to government policy.
First of thanks for your extensive response. I do applaud you for trying to figure out why you are an other opinion than a felt majority here. Will read it in a bit completely.
As a cop in a police union, your job is to enforce the law level-handedly, not to decide what the law should be.
I would argue that is not the job of the police. Philosophy Tube's Abigail Thorne did a video "How the police makes the law" about something to related to that.
The idea you write is somewhat of a liberal one that assigns values to the "state of law" that is a good deal class warfare by the bourgeosie against the working class and marginalized sub strata. If you mean that in a Socialist state the police would act in accordance with law, you wouldn't be quite wrong, but some transitory aspects would remain. However the law would be somewhat different in that it then used as a tool in the class warfare against capitalists. How many people responsible for the financial crisis were harrased by the police or jailed? How many - if you see China is socialist - were jailed there?
I guess that could be somewhat what you mean with governmental position?
From what I can tell, that isn't really the case in Vancouver because of the extremely large immigrant minority population in the city and the relatively robust system of police oversight in the OPCC.
I would argue is not quite as good as you think it is, while it is an liberal improvement to the status quo. My question would be do you have contact to affected and what do they and experts in the regard, as well as Marxists in your region say about the police?
but I do think police unions should be evaluated from their role of protecting workers' rights and maintaining worker integrity rather
Which they don't. However I do agree that evaluation of Vancouver police unions should be done twofold, analytical due to their position, structure and function in the class warfare and general police critique and also in its specificity in regards to Vancouver.
There are a couple of theoretical texts and articles that would apply
Under the assumption that law enforcement is work and thus that a cop is a worker, shouldn't the evaluation of a police union be based on how well it protects police rights while maintaining standards?
But yes, my point is that police serve to enforce the law, and thus that a lot of complaints against police are really complaints against government and the power they've vested in law enforcement.
Protesting in Vancouver, I've never felt that police have been unnecessarily harsh, though I suppose that might change with the new city council we have.