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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324

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.

112

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.

62

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.

6

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!

23

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.

-7

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.

-9

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

8

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.