The union movement has suffered a continuing series of body blows to its status and influence since its heydays in the 1940’s-50’s and it is being set up to take another big one now, from the attitudes of one of its own towards the Black Lives Matter movement– police unions.
The Black Lives Matter movement targeting police brutality has prompted, for the most part, a knee-jerk tribal-like reaction by police departments nationwide, represented by strong unions, to demands for reform.
Defended by their unions, they are "circling the wagons," so to speak, reflexively protecting and supporting even the most egregious racial and civil rights violators in their own membership. While only a minority of police members are bad actors, the insular, tribal, tightly-defensive departments are letting the worst of them set the attitudes and public profile for all. The all-for-one, one-for-all posture which has historically bonded departmental personnel is acting to put them at an untenable confrontational status with the black community, as well as much of civil society.
While police unions have a justifiable role in providing leverage in negotiating compensation and benefits, ensuring health and safety conditions of employment, and protecting membership due process rights, none of that necessarily includes shielding perpetrators of brutality and racial prejudice. Nor does it justify resistance to reasonable oversight of professional responsibility and accountability.
A new tipping-point level of citizens naturally sees gross unfairness in bad police getting away with murder (literally) as well as other bad acts, as they regularly do now. They are rightly demanding accountability in the form of citizenry review boards, independent oversight and enforcement of police practices, and the like.
As the number of bad acts pile up, the protective posture of the unions is perceived as abetting these bad acts. The union movement in general may be implicated if it doesn't guide and pressure police unions to rethink their culture and practices. The police unions can take the high road. They need to work with citizens to model police practices, regulate behaviors, and make the civil-police relationship a positive one. Much of this needs to be done "in house,” as pressures from the outside will be insufficient to reform if those inside do not buy into it, so to speak. The good police need to obtain the upper hand (in a sort of morally superior way), not dissimilar to how non-smokers tipped the smoker-society relationship whereby smokers now accommodate to the interests of non-smokers.
Nevertheless, as they have for decades, the police departments may fend off yet again citizen demands for reform and accountability. After all, they have enormous political and economic influence in the governmental sphere, especially in urban centers, and they have the muscle, of course, to bully their ways in the street. For them, a medium to long-term bunkering strategy may likely work fine yet again.
Yet, there likely will be consequences. If not immediately for the police departments themselves, then for the union movement as a whole, including those in the public sector. The scope and intensity of citizen objections to the existing police culture is more significant now than ever and will unlikely abate much. There will be continued pressure on governments to curtail public sector union power, in all of its departments.
Already having a greatly diminished status with much of the public, and having lost its historical virtuous standing as a protector of labor, civil, and human rights the union movement is at a historical low point in American society. It has way fewer members, less political and economic influence, a growing history of organizing failures, and decreasing credibility. All of this decline in status and influence has occurred even though unions represent the best tool that workers have to stand up to capitalist forces.
It's been a long time since the union movement was viewed as a grand progressive force having leadership in employment relations and economic fairness; civil rights; and the establishing of a social safety net, particularly Social Security and Medicare, employment compensation systems, and occupational leave policies.
Having secured the public sector for a long time doesn't mean that it will last, especially as social forces are pushing for change. Those pushing back against the police unions (and unions in general) will include the black community (which ironically make up the bulk of union members nationwide, especially in the public sector), public-interested citizens, who object to the special interest focus of unions, ideological conservatives (of course) who object to unions as a matter of principle, and all those who see the essential unfairness of police brutality against black citizens.
Whoa! That's a lot of people, with influence to shake things up. Those taking a progressive position on the BLM movement: Big Business, Big Culture, much of the Democratic Party, and a significant amount of the general populace. For the union movement to do too little now to to pressure police unions to reformulate to support BML will undermine even more.
This is a good time for the union movement to become reflective. Not only should they be joining the chorus of the BLM, they should be revisiting the entire social profile of unions generally.
Here's what a reformulated union movement needs to do now:
1. Stop acting as a special interest. The general public, left and right of the political spectrum, are sick to death of special interest groups. The union movement needs to reinvigorate the progressive, humanistic general interest stance of the 40’s-50’s, speaking for all workers and all Americans.
2. Create a template increasing professionalism and regulating internal governance and operations to eliminate corruption and the "fiefdom" elements of some local unions.
3. Maintain a fairness standard with management. This means bargaining compensation packages with a sort of general interest perspective. Public sector unions, for example should balance their specific labor interests with those of the taxpayers and citizens. They should not overreach for goodies even if they can get away with compliant government negotiators.
4. Develop new public relations campaigns to educate the public about the reformulation. It needs new members, supporters, and, especially, new friends.
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