They are workers but because of their special role they shouldn't get their own independent and centralized unions. Each precinct cops should have to join the local service workers' union, ideally also split by function (eg, patrols with truckers, guards with restaurant workers, corrections with teachers, etc). They should be unionized, just not with each other.
They are workers though, despite me also agreeing that ACAB.
Whether we like it or not, they do a lot of road work, street traffic work, clearing wrecks, gathering insurance information, etc.
They just shouldn't be separate from other labor unions.
Take that up with the police “union”. You’re not wrong but that shit is.
Cops should be workers & have their union(s).
What they shouldn't be is mobsters, a tool of the rich or politicians (but instead non-political personals), uneducated, untouchable, sadistic (as a job requirement), etc.What the "cops" the pic (which is an awesome piece of art!) is referring to are just not what cops should be & you should fight the system (you are financing) that doesn't serve and protect you as 'the people'.
No. We do not need cops. The police will always be a corrupt hand of state violence. As long as there are cops (as in special people who are allowed to use violence) in any form they will ultimately become corrupt. As long as law is enforced it is not equal, and it will never protect "the people". The people are the only ones that can protect "the people". You don't need cops, you need everyone to start policing people around them. That is the only way everyone gets protection.
ACAB! All power to all the people!
I'm surprised that an anarchist position is getting downvoted in this community. I guess the libs came to party.
Yes, people will govern & police themselves!!
They should perhaps form a sort of democratic system of their representatives (let's call it totallynotagovernment) that would create and maintain a professional group of people versed in law & order, maybe call this group totallynotpolice ...
/s
Seriously, what are you talking about?
What would be the motive to write or follow laws? Or have a monetary system? Would it be better to give all executive power to anyone with more violence?
In this case police is just as corrupt as the gov funding it (but I get it, in case of USA this was the case from the start - poor dudes & dudettes never even knew anything else, even police departments when first established over there were just hired current slave catchers groups).
Police is power from and for the people of the people control it.
Much like with laws, you want a legal system to give power to the people. If it doesn't do that is barely a legal system, much just an oppression tool of the few (like US police), but at that point its semantics what you call it.
If the gov, legal system, or police opress the people thats is just not a democracy (eg if 3/4 of people support an idea but the gov doesn't implement it, then thats not democratic, is it?).
Or a non-gov example of the same: western people seem to condemn CEOs as the worst and most brutal dictators ... yet somehow forget that it's the owner class that hires regular workers (CEOs) as their dogs/police/governors.
It's not the CEOs/police or the existence of their function, it's who/what they work for.
What they shouldn’t be is....
But they are, and have been from their inception and by design, so maybe, they simply shouldn't be..
Many many "jobs" under capitalism are a form of guard labor. Cops are just the most explicit.
It's so funny when people realize unions are just special interest groups
Yes a coal miners union fights to keep coal mines open and police unions fight to protect their members from consequences, there's no reason to expect them to conform to leftwing politics just because the left in general likes unions
So what is a confederation of different industries ? Why many of those confederation accept every industries but not cops association ? Finally, people organized tend to have share some analyses and goals, and some of them appends to be left-wing. It's not u surprise than people struggling for their rights meat the same issues, and share some common interests. Being smash by cops for no reasons when you just want to keep your job is an example why organized workers consider that cops have not the same interests
yeah their unions get wierd to and have unusual amounts of power. Chicago is so obviously mobbed up with its union its rediculous. Seriously go see their union rep talk.
No. All labour, including cops, need unions.
I think police unions becoming class un-conscious is the problem. They have become tools of the capitalists who hav Dissolve them and make them better.
Edit: I'm speaking for police forces in general. Slave owner roots of American police departments would warrant dissolving EVERYTHING and building a fairer system, including unions.
All labour, including cops
Cops aren't labour. They're the rabid guard dogs of the elites.
I think police unions becoming class un-conscious is the problem
Nah. They're fully conscious of which class they serve, to the detriment of everyone else.
Dissolve them
Yes.
make them better
Not really possible as long as they consist of cops.
I think unions are fundamentally for collective bargaining against consolidated powers typically capital. Police unions in the USA have been bastardized to favor their own and resisting change to a power structure that helps them, Aka losing class consciousness.
Let's say the police departments started mistreating individual cops, overworking them and sending them into dangerous situations without proper training (hint: as they do currently), how so the individuals being mistreated fight back?
What I see in America is a concerted effort to construct a Us vs Them narrative in the police force. This includes dehumanizing the "policed" and protecting their own at all costs. This is essentially losing class consciousness, where a fellow working person is seen as fundamentally evil, and the real reason its so bad for cops.
"Not in all countries"
Outside of Murikan
moviesslave history & current media reports (UK included) Im glad that "cop" doesn't mean the same type of people oppressive force it does in Anglo systems in places I lived.
Seriously lol? Is this a red fash thing? Like vanguard cops and MLM cops? No thanks.
