Why We Can’t Support Police Unions
Last weekend, UAW Local 2865 became the first local to call for the expulsion of a police union from the AFL-CIO, insisting in a resolution that the federation kick out the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). It was a laudable move that evinced a commitment to social movement unionism — other locals should follow suit.
The UAW local, which is comprised of 13,000 teaching assistants and other student workers on University of California campuses, specifically decried cop unions’ lobbying against oversight, support for politicians opposed to police accountability, and dogged defense of officers accused of abuse.
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So what business do academic workers have passing resolutions against police officers? The better question, amid an upsurge against lethal policing, is how unions should relate to popular movements that it hasn’t directly birthed.
Social movement unionism recognizes that labor isn’t a sectional interest, and it shouldn’t behave like one. It should instead place itself at the center of struggles that improve the lives of workers and take on social injustice. The proper constituency of a union isn’t simply its membership, but the entire working class.
As their record since the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrates, police unions aren’t institutionally equipped to be anything other than anathema to this cause.
After a grand jury exonerated the Staten Island police officer who choked Eric Garner to death, Patrick Lynch, the president of New York City’s largest police union, lauded the jury decision and pointed the finger at Garner himself. “Mr. Garner made a choice that day to resist arrest,” Lynch opined in December. When two police officers were tragically slain a couple weeks later, Lynch accused Mayor Bill de Blasio of fostering anti-cop enmity and thus having “blood on his hands.”
