While professional groups are often mistakenly analogized to labor unions, they aren't and have very different functions. Professionals in organized professions like law or medicine may also be in labor unions (this is unusual in the US outside of the public sector), but the labor union and the professional organizations aren't interchangeable.
When an engineer's structure causes injury or loss of life, it is studied and taken very seriously. Liability falls on both the engineer and their employer, if there is one. Blatant negligence means the removal of licenses or the ability to practice in the field they're licensed in, along with civil lawsuits or even criminal charges.
When a cop causes injury or loss of life, the entire system tries to brush it under the rug completely, and learn nothing from it. Then their peers go up to bat for them explaining how they're being unfairly persecuted and that they did nothing wrong. Cops are often shielded from civil and criminal liability for abuses that other professionals would end up in prison for.
Trying to place the blame on unions is pretty far-fetched, and you're speaking to someone who is against the idea of police unions in particular.
Police unions have played a major role in protecting union members from management. Or as we call it elsewhere in politics, accountability.
I'm not saying solidarity is bad. I'm saying it's a tool that police unions have weaponized against the general public.
I think that reducing the problems of policing in the US down to "solidarity" isn't apt, as solidarity in other unions doesn't produce this level of opaqueness, lack of honesty and responsibility, negligence, ineptitude, or criminality.
The issue is at play is culture, one that comes from the top and is reinforced every step of the way to the bottom.
I agree that police unions have a strong hand in enabling and enacting the policies that shield police from accountability, but police are given powers that are unique to any other government or otherwise union worker. Allowing easily abused power to consolidate to the point that it has is why I'm against police unions in particular, but not others.
I do not think, do not believe, and do not claim that all the problems of policing in the US reduce to weaponized solidarity. I think, believe, and stand by my claim that solidarity has been weaponized by police unions. I also stand by my previous claim that the particular behavior pattern other commenters pointed to is one form of weaponized solidarity in action.
I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. Again, please accept my apologies for my failures in communication.
I can't remember the last time that a doctor or lawyer blatantly murdered someone on tape and had their peers go up to bat for them about how they're actually the victim and did nothing wrong. When it comes to law enforcement and correctional officers, I can find a dozen of such instances from the last 12 months alone.