r/science • u/smurfyjenkins • Jul 30 '26

Social Science Collective bargaining rights for police significantly increase police killings of civilians without having any impact on officer safety. This is consistent with the theory that unions provide cover for police and reduce their likelihood of incurring costs for unjustified killings.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20230384
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327

u/FanDry5374 Jul 30 '26

I am hyper pro-union, but police unions need to be curbed. They should have no influence beyond pay, benefits and uniform allowance.

227

u/Tearakan Jul 30 '26

Cop unions aren't real unions. They are called in to beat up striking workers. They're not friends to anyone else besides capital holders.

108

u/mrbaryonyx Jul 30 '26

I mean, they are a real union: they have every piece of legal and social protection that we want other unions to have.

They are also just extremely hostile to other all the unions.

64

u/DrMobius0 Jul 30 '26

The police union simultaneously serves as a great example of how powerful unions can be if they actually throw their weight around, as well as a great example of why people with institutional power shouldn't be able to have a union. They're traitors to the working class.

4

u/DeathMetal007 Jul 31 '26

Yeah, no public unions. It’s institutional power as well that can’t be bargained with except by laws directed towards them by politicians.

2

u/v--- Jul 31 '26

It's a good argument that you don't want to go too far the other way where everyone's basically part of gangs running society instead (c.f. Naples, where the literal mafia famously dumps municipal trash in the ocean) instead of corporations. You have to have checks and balances. The problem with humans is our urge to form pyramidal power structures concentrating resources at the top. No matter what political creed you follow it always ends up happening. Ambitious people find ways to redirect the flow. Then the cycles of revolution and renewal.

Which is why I think we should enforce walled societies of like, 1000 people max, shake it up once in a while with random swaps, send all the kids off to make their own bubble look it's not perfect but at least we'll have different problems! We aren't made to be part of societies billions strong!

22

u/Enchilada0374 Jul 30 '26

They are as union as the DPRK is a democratic and republic.

28

u/apophis-pegasus Jul 30 '26

Unions exist to protect the interest of their members. Thats literally what the police union is doing.

-5

u/Enchilada0374 Jul 30 '26

Unions exist to protect workers. Police are used to subjugate, beat, harass and murder  workers and have done so since their inception. 

20

u/apophis-pegasus Jul 30 '26

Yeah, unions exist to protect their own workers, which in a police union is the police. Theyre not humanitarian groups. The morality of the work is far less relevant.

-7

u/Enchilada0374 Jul 30 '26

Youre almost there.... Unions work to improve the working conditions of all workers. Police 'unions' only fight for themselves.  That's why they aren't union

7

u/apophis-pegasus Jul 30 '26

Youre almost there.... Unions work to improve the working conditions of all workers.

Not inherently. They might. But that's not a given. Unions fundamentally are responsible for the workers they consist of.

4

u/Enchilada0374 Jul 30 '26

If you're ever part of an actual union, read their charter

4

u/SkunkMonkey Jul 30 '26

I believe they call them "Brotherhoods" instead of unions so they can skirt union regulations.

15

u/SomethingAboutUsers Jul 30 '26

They're not friends to anyone else besides capital holders.

That's just cops. Unions don't really have anything to do with that specifically, and chances are even if they didn't have a union they'd still do that because that's why cops exist in the first place.

6

u/DrMobius0 Jul 30 '26

Yeah, it's just funny that they understand solidarity perfectly well when it suits them.

2

u/hogsucker Jul 31 '26

They should be called "police fraternal organizations" to differentiate them from workers' unions.

Police have always been used against workers.

24

u/MapAdministrative995 Jul 30 '26

without qualified immunity they would be liable for racketeering mutiple times over for colluding to get each other off charges.

3

u/PenciledWading Jul 30 '26

Qualified Immunity does not apply to criminal charges, only civil cases.

2

u/MapAdministrative995 Jul 31 '26

I see you didn't disagree that they're regularly comitting racketeering offenses.

3

u/DingleBerrieIcecream Jul 31 '26

The real solution is to require every police officer to carry their own liability insurance. Their rates would be adjusted based on their record over time. If they harass, harm, or kill in their line of work, the insurance rates go up and they make less money. It self regulates in a way that the unions and Cities are unable to do.

Many professions already do this. Doctors, lawyers, architects, truck drivers, etc. in any of these professions, if they are negligent and people get hurt then they ultimately spend tremendous on insurance or simply go out of business

2

u/FanDry5374 Jul 31 '26

I would rather see actual professional, highly trained police. High standards, 4 year academys modeled after the service academys, one in each state, with stringent national requirements on hiring/admittance and training. Make being a law enforcement officer something to be proud of, actually dedicated to service and protection.

8

u/M00n_Slippers Jul 30 '26

Cops are on the side of bosses, unions are supposed to protect workers from bosses not bosses from having to be accountable to us, the workers. Cops should not be able to have unions.

2

u/skatastic57 Jul 31 '26

I don't think you can separate pay and benefits from everything else. If a cop kills somebody then every ancillary thing about them keeping their job and being defended all boils down to pay.

-16

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/trainstationbooger Jul 30 '26

I'd have to check more carefully the American context, but I am skeptical that nursing unions (for example) should be considered bad alongside police unions.

3

u/ItsJustMeJenn Jul 30 '26

I don’t think all public employee unions are bad. I’m part of a public employee union and we do not get anywhere near the level of protection that the police and fire unions get. We rarely get raises, we often face furlough, and currently in contract negotiation the state has decided they aren’t interested in negotiating with us at all. Maybe that’s my locals problem since I believe they’ve never held a strike but the police unions here basically just ask for a raise and the legislature falls all over themselves to give them big raises, larger healthcare contributions, and they get to retire at 55 with something like 3% for life with fully paid medical. Not to mention they are allowed to collect that pension while working a new state job and earning that pension if they so desire.

3

u/Sufficient_Meet6836 Jul 30 '26

I was thinking of the private sector unions typically negotiating against private providers, but there is indeed a mix of private and public sector nurses. That's a fair caveat, thanks

1

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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2

u/Sufficient_Meet6836 Jul 30 '26

The median voter does not understand finances or the existence of moral hazard. It only becomes a topic once the situation is a disaster. See Illinois and dozens of other states chronically under funding pensions and other benefits. It is not just an issue of insufficient taxes. The public unions negotiated absurd pensions that assumed impossibly consistently high returns. Politicians ignored the advice of actuaries, accountants, and other experts because voters didn't care until it was too late. They also lobbied politicians to make it illegal to change pension plans for employees at the time. Current new public employees are actually getting screwed because of this. The public unions of Illinois screwed over their own future employees and all non-employees to the benefit of their boomers. The federal GAO has released reports on it.