To avoid any claim that I do not agree with Black Lives Matter, or that I am somehow a purveyor of the White Privilege Patriarchy, let me state right up front that this is so strongly disproved by the history of my GLBT and Labor advocacy, what led up to it, and what resulted from it, especially as my greatest success did not in any way benefit me, but students of all races, colors, creeds etc., which shreds even the slightest possibility of such a charge.
So don’t even go there.
My concern is that Americans have been deprived of the opportunity to learn about the history of unions in school, and this is a conscious act. An example of this lack of information is laid bare by those who tend toward the extreme in the demands made by people who too often assume a position to speak for the BLM movement, as opposed speak with it. You know who you are. You are the White woke people who unintentionally support the oppression and prevent serious discussion as you act as the White Saviors of People of Color while White-splaining what the Black people are demanding and saying. You have let your enthusiasm overtake the reality of the moment, and you feel that making the most extreme demands somehow makes you an important leader in the cause.
One such demand, “defund” the police, whose real intent is often obscured by a more negative political mistruth, had off-shoots, some of which morphed into “Abolish” the police. And, along with this goes a grossly uninformed demand to destroy the police union because the lack of historical information has people accepting that unions are intrinsically bad.
So, let me explain.
Labor unions came about to counter the abuses of workers by those who ran the factories, mines, trucking companies, those business owners who made their profits by suppressing wages and having people work under poor conditions for too many hours that left little time for living decent lives. The less management paid employees and the less they paid out to make their factories more humane, the more profits went to the company.
Those who have been in any of the old factories from the 19th Century that still stand in formerly major manufacturing cities like New Bedford, Fall River, and Lowell, may have noticed that the window sills in the workers’ areas are not parallel to the floor, slopping instead at a 45 degree angle. What they may not know is that the reason for that slope was to prevent workers from bringing some humanity to their work space by simply placing a potted plant or anything decorative on the window sill to brighten the place up a bit.
Yeah, things were that oppressive.
Unions came about because workers wanted more control of their hours, wages, and conditions of employment, and this generally annoyed the company owners who saw how this could cut into the company’s profits and their own personal fortunes.
If you live in places like New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, the beautiful mansions of the business owners from days gone by are a source of historic pride. What might escape your attention, on the other hand, are those blocks of old 19th Century cookie cutter homes that were built close to the factories by the owners so that their employees could live close to work and wouldn’t miss any of their long hours. Because their landlord was the company for which they worked, while wages were low, the factories that begrudgingly had to pay the any wages, got a lot of the money they begrudgingly put into wages back through rent..
There is a reason that American children are not taught the history of unions in school, and politicians with more loyalty to the 1% than their actual constituents demonize unions. Employers want their workers to reject unions so that they no longer have a say in their own hours, wages, and conditions of employment, so their wages can be kept low, their hours can be increased so they can be overworked, and their working conditions can be kept poor. Painting unions as something bad, and getting people to accept this not knowing they are being used against themselves , is a strategy to take power away from workers, and for them to accept whatever crumbs they might get..
And it is working.
I do not in any way condone police abuse or the wall of silence that keeps good cops from helping to eliminate bad and abusive cops. So I fully support the call to reform policing in the United States, and such calls are generally reasonable.
But, lacking any knowledge of the history and purpose of unions, those competing to be angrier than the next guy, go a little too far when they call for the abolition of police unions, playing into, and proving the effectiveness of those who have been working hard to keep people ignorant of facts and to support what is against their own self interest.
40 hour work weeks, weekends, holidays, overtime pay, employee provided health insurance, the minimum wage, lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, these are things workers got because they unionized, not because owners and management were generous.
People do not like what seems to be an all powerful police union, and they have the right to address obviously bad or dangerous policing, but many ,if not most people, who oppose unions of any kind and police unions in particular, may not understand, because they were never told, or choose to ignore what they should know, that the union does not have total control over what is in their contracts because the contract is the product of negotiations between management and labor, and what ends up in the contract is the result of compromise between the two parties. The union does not hand over a contract with unilaterally arrived at provisions and force management to accept it, Every provision in a contract is argued and hashed over between the two parties to establish what will be in it.
People assign blame to the rank and file union members while giving the other side of the collective bargaining process a free pass. If people want to address union problems, they need to look beyond the union to the people on the other side of the negotiations table. What’s in the contract is there because they allowed it.
The contract protects all members, and what people often fail to realize is that when a union defends a member, it is not actually protecting that individual, but the contract that protects all members. If they allow a provision of a contract to be violated or ignored in the case of a bad employee, they allow a protection for all the good ones to be weakened making them victims of management whims. The person they are protecting is only the Some of the prostate cancer signs associated to urination include; Pain or burning during urination Persistent need to urinate at viagra without prescription http://www.devensec.com/news/Current_Projects_May_2014.pdf night Blood in urine (hematuria) Reduced velocity of urine stream Difficulty when urinating and loss of libido. Moreover, these foods must be eaten raw, or within the case of rice, unwashed, as trace minerals tadalafil order are lost. Impotence is a hard thing to deal with and that is the reason a lot to companies all over the world now is producing Sildenafil citrate production with buy viagra online lowest cost. Though there can be dozens of health associated reasons behind, but treating online order viagra them does not always put an end to your ED woes. conduit though which the strength of the contract that protects all is upheld.
Removing bad employees is easy to do if the provisions for doing so that are in the contract are followed. If, when management violates the established procedure in the case of a bad employee, the union does not hold them to negotiated procedures, good employees can be dismissed for the weakest of reasons as well. There would be no reasonable job security.
A good employee can be disciplined and fired wrongfully if protections are weakened, and if people take the time to study the situation, they would understand that.
It is, sadly, the worst employees that need the publically seen protection, and not the myriad of those employees who can safely report to work each day and who simply do their jobs which no one sees.
We rarely give any attention to the cars zipping along the highway with us, but we certainly notice the car pulled over in the breakdown lane, especially if it is an accident. But that car does not represent all those cars we simply gave no more than passing attention to but which were there.
If you do not protect the contract when someone ignores or abuses it, you lose the protections for the good workers, and they become victims of management whim. Allow a bad employee to be dismissed in spite of the contract, and you allow good people to be fired on management whim.
I think the effects of the demonizing of unions and the lack of education about unions, where they came from, and why they are important has borne the desired fruit. Many people are calling for ending police unions without any understanding the above information.
Rather than just demand the abolition of police unions, citizens should demand that those with whom they negotiate do a better job of it.
Police
unions are not some invading army that forced their demands on a victimized
management, but a group of workers who want decent hours, wages, and conditions
of employment.
Let’s remember that in many major cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago where the Irish-Americans were seen as second class citizens locked out of decent employment and relegated to factory work with low pay and long hours in inhumane working conditions, with few options beyond dangerous jobs like firefighter and police officer. And, if employed in either, you were treated accordingly.
Because of their hours, wages, and conditions of employment, Police officers unionized.
Until they did, police officers worked a 7-day week, with one day off every 15 days and that one day off could be taken away at will, as it too often was, Police officers could not leave town without the expressed permission of the commissioner because they needed to be easily called into work. Those on the day shift worked 73 hours, those on the night shift 83, and those who drove the police wagons, commonly referred to as Paddy Wagons because of the Irish cops’ connection with St. Patrick and Paddy being a derogatory term for them, worked 98 hours a week.
After their one day off, an officer’s first day back was a 15 hour shift, performing various tasks such as doing paperwork, wagon runs, and attending the front desk, followed by a three hour break after which they were required to report to the station where they slept for three hours, so that at midnight when the next day began they could report to roll call and begin their street patrol duty after which they could finally go home.
An officer who had the day shift worked a 10 hour day spending one night a week in the station house on reserve.
Are all unions pure? No.
Are some union leaders corrupt? Yes.
But this is why reform is necessary, while total abolition is simply ridiculous.
And if you think unions are not important to guarantee at least decent wages and job security, a person would be naive to think that when the right thing is done structurally, and laws are enacted to meet the goals of the BLM Movement, everything is complete, society has changed, and the mindset of those who otherwise might have been guilty of continued acts of bigotry, but for the existence of the new laws, will have been changed to abandon all their bigotry and looking for subtle ways to still exercise it.
Many Gay people have experienced this. When it became illegal either through state law or local ordinance to fire someone just because they are Gay, those with animus would look for other ways to either force you out or take the chance of a law suit they really do not want, and cut you lose claiming some concocted reason to justify it.
It would seem, if the actions of these past few weeks bear fruit, we Gays will be joined closely by the beneficiaries of the changes made because of the BLM Movement and other youth let action groups, and will see subtle forms of bigotry in action.
Management may encourage, tacitly condone, or covertly commit acts of bigotry, so workers, even in a reformed police department, will need protection from violations of their contract, and that would be themselves, joining together.
Unions, and, yes, some need some corrections, are what could be the only place for a new cop in a newly reformed police department to turn.