Public unions, and police unions specifically, are distinct in their impact on society from other unions.
Police have negotiated the right to beat and murder people and keep their jobs with pay for months.
There are cities where Derek Chauvin would have been on paid leave for weeks after killing george floyd. Minneapolis had the right to fire his ass when they saw how bad a cop he was.
But don't blame them for something which is unrelated to the union itself.
There are cities where Derek Chauvin would have been on paid leave for weeks after killing george floyd.
Yes, and the police forces in those cities would all be unionized. Clearly, the issue is not the union; it is the city or county that negotiated poorly with the union. Though generally, in some states like the US Deep South, politicians are more than happy to give officers unlimited rights even without the unions requesting them.
Minneapolis had the right to fire his ass when they saw how bad a cop he was.
They fired him literally the next day. For prior incidents, none of them rose to the level justifying termination. That would have been true even in a non-union force.
First result on google for civil forfeiture. Followed up by searching for [law enforcement agency] and union returns zero results for the worst locations.
Police officers are unionized pretty much everywhere. Sheriffs, which carry out the most egregious civil asset forfeitures (usually in small travel-through towns), generally are not unionized outside of the big counties and states.
Mine: Unions have a direct, negative influence on the ability for departments/cities to fire bad cops.
Yours: There is correlation, but not causation, between non-unionized police departments and instances of civil asset forfeiture.
San Antonio, TX will be voting in May on whether to disband the police union. "Back the Blue" types are saying it's Defund in disguise, that we won't be able to find good cops, and so on.
Except several large cities in Texas don't have unionized police, and they do alright. Furthermore, the cops in San Antonio can commit really awful crimes, and still have months- or years-long appeals.
Being a cop isn't a right, it is a privilege and a critical duty. It should be easy to fire bad cops. SAPD, if you didn't want your union to be busted, maybe you should have held yourselves to a higher standard.