Labor Day reminder: Cops aren't workers. Police associations aren't unions.
Look, I hate police unions as much as you do, but cops don't stop being workers just because you hate them. Do unionized Trump voters and racists and guys who beat their wives stop being workers, too?
cops don’t stop being workers just because you hate them
I might argue that cops are political apparatchiks and cronies. A lot of the work is functionally a sinecure. Police can and regularly do simply skip their shifts or stand around doing nothing of consequence, while collecting a paycheck. The stated role of the police - protecting human life and community property - routinely goes unfulfilled. The functional role they fill is to discipline labor - guarding the properties of the idle rich, harassing minority communities and the unemployed/unhoused, hunting and assaulting enemies of the state, surveilling political and social opposition.
I don't think its fair to say that policing isn't real labor, because there's definitely a craft to it and even the most anti-cop society eventually recognizes the need for professionalized security. But the police as we know them today? Would you consider a pimp a member of the proletariat? What if he was a pimp-for-hire?
Do unionized Trump voters and racists and guys who beat their wives stop being workers, too?
I guess we get to have some discourse over whether Mark Janus is a member of the proletariat, next?
I would argue that when your job consists of propagandizing against worker solidarity or physically intimidating people seeking economic independence, you're not doing productive work. Whether you're voting for Trump or Harris or RFK doesn't really matter. If you're beating up your spouse in order to extort more free labor? Absolutely the fuck not. That's textbook petite bourgeois behavior.
Police can and regularly do simply skip their shifts or stand around doing nothing of consequence, while collecting a paycheck
You're mixing two things here. In a private firm unions are needed because they balance the power. (Simplifying) Employer wants to exploit workers, union keeps them in check. (ofc employers don't need to be exploitative for unions to be needed etc etc etc)
But when the employer is completely dysfunctional the unions become dysfunctional too. I don't really know how the US government justifies paying for police doing nothing, but it's the core of the problem. If there's no expectation to work then unions have nothing to do and become something weird.
The solution is not to take unions away, but rather to stop pouring money for no work and restore that employer-union power balance.
So defund the police, I guess?
But when the employer is completely dysfunctional the unions become dysfunctional too.
The purpose of the union is to operate as a check on the employer. If unions can't rein in the worst impulses of their employers, they aren't functioning in the interests of the people they supposedly represent.
A corrupt union leadership isn't part of the proletariat, either. A corrupt union membership - particularly one that's financially wedded to political insiders - isn't operating as a bargaining unit for the benefit of itself. These organizations are extractionary. A union of loan sharks or extortionary arsonists isn't part of the proletariat, either.
The solution is not to take unions away, but rather to stop pouring money for no work and restore that employer-union power balance.
The solution is to dissolve the corrupt institution and reincorporate it with a membership that represents the interests of the community at large. But a cop that's spent their entire career in a corrupt bureaucracy can't be trusted to guard the neighborhood any more than a fox can be trusted to guard the hen house. Once you've got a taste, you're ruined. Nothing to do but sort you into a different profession.
So defund the police, I guess?
Call it restructuring.
Is the Crown a worker too? The reason Responders and military are not workers is because they serve the rich. They are not the proles, they are on the other side of class.
I bet King George didn't stop "working."
You think there is a "benign" "small" "local" government as opposed to a big bad one? Have you ever heard of Fusion Centers? Do you know the IDF military trains US cops often? Do you know big parts of local government were in the military before they became a department? You don't just stop being a former Pentagon collateral murderer.
Responders and military are not workers is because they serve the rich
Wow. When people say "beggaring the question", this is what they mean.
No question is begged. I don't think you understand that idiom. Explain. "Is" is a typo though.
Don't we all serve the rich in one way or another? Government workers at least provide services that benefit all of us, even if they do benefit the rich more than most.
In a capitalist pseudo-democracy where corporations are people with unlimited free speech and the richer candidates win the election 95% of the time, yes. https://capitolhillcitizen.com
If we had a true democracy of worker cooperatives, the workers would be the bosses and wealth would be distributed more equally. https://www.democracyatwork.info/
Teachers unions, logistics unions, the trades, librarians, nurses, the service industry--these are true unions that serve the community and contribute constructive benefits that improve the lives of many. The military, FD, PD, and carceral organizations put people down and surveil and jail them. It is not right to collectivize what harms the community. They don't need the help anyway. They have the biggest budgets, intergovernmental reinforcements, and all the weapons and walls on their side.
The state is a power structure. I don't become a corporation when I get a job at McDonalds.
So you understand how labour and management are not the same thing, right? Police have the authority of the state. They literally rule us. That is not labour.
Labour is the class that produces value. Police don't produce value, they implement the will of the state by doing violence against citizen of that same state. Labour theory is just not meaningful when applied to the police.
Are you a fireman? It's just like a fireman to say that people are being stupid repeatedly if the FD has to get off their lazy butts and actually work.
As far as "the big state" goes, they are a fully integrated system of oppression. Many in local government are vets right out of the military or currently in reserves who view civilians as insurgents. I don't know how the Right got this "local" government distinction popular because it is nothing like reality. DHS constantly suckles the FD and PD like they are little babies.
They are all in on it; there is no "little" government.
I really don't see why people think the FD are that different. Same kind of people from the military who think they are here to subjugate civilians with the lodge. Responders should not have unions. Communities should provide for their own systems of care that are not turned against them through "professionalization" (i.e. sitting and driving around surveiling and harming people).
I dunno what fire fighters you’ve met, but the ones I know get paid absolute dick to respond at all hours to about an 80/20 mix of “really stupid people doing really stupid things, often repeatedly” and tragic accidents. Out of all the issues to have with “the big state” the fire department is a weird one.
I mean, the biggest difference between the PD and the FD is that I can't think of a single instance in which a fire department official showed up to provide aid and ended up shooting the person who placed the call.
The FD constantly harasses me nationally and won't let me reproduce, slandering me to every community with their lies.
Wouldn't think that myself if I didn't know from direct experience.
i cant be the only one they did this to. The propaganda that they are heroes (like copaganda) is completely false.
They don't seem to work hard. They just sit in their firehouse and make noise with sirens. I rarely see fire or that they are actually doing something. That boredom is probably what turns them into such bullies. Nothing to do but gossip and dictate who can have sex with whom in town and what mean names to call townsfolk including making fun of kids.
It's true. I don't know why it is a surprise to people that the FD and PD are assholes from the military, but it is true. No disinfo. Maybe you should sign up and find out for yourself. But wait! Another surprise! They might torture you and you may die if you do. Don't say someone didn't warn you who knew better!
I need more than, "It's true," to take a claim like, "The fire department has a national conspiracy to prevent me from getting laid," or whatever the fuck it is you are trying to say.
I'm not a psychologist and maybe I'll get hate for this but they may have persecutory delusions.
The FD constantly harasses me nationally and won't let me reproduce, slandering me to every community with their lies.
Someone tell me how that works. Don't use circular logic like this "I know the claim I make is true because I know it and claim so" guy though.
Are you saying it can't be proven so it doesn't exist.
That is the same as saying there were no cross-burnings and lynchings because the KKK were ghosts and ghosts don't exist.
Clandestinity, subterfuge, and passive aggression still exist even if the perpetrators don't write a signed confession with multiple forms of ID and send it to a judge. How did the mafia ever get prosecuted or phantom unattributable cyber criminals?