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One of the demands of Black Lives Matter (BLM) is to de-fund the police. At the center of it are the police unions, since the contracts are negotiated through the police unions. My question is as follows:

  1. Can the police unions be dissolved permanently?
  2. Is it possible to ban police unions in a democratic country?
Paul Johnson
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Slartibartfast
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5 Answers5

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Technically speaking, any union can be dissolved if the people on the other side of the table are willing to cope with the consequences. A union is merely a collective bargaining structure that negotiates employment contracts as a group. The private sector in the US has a long history of union busting, which generally involves firing all union-affiliated employees — ending their contracts peremptorily — and suffering though months of acrimonious strikes and protests. It becomes a matter of endurance and attrition: the business hopes that loss of income will force striking workers to seek employment elsewhere, thinning and eventually dispersing the protests; the union hopes that strikes will limit production by depriving the business of workers, and impact sales by impugning the business' public reputation, and that the consequent loss of profits will force the company to the bargaining table.

In the early days, union fights were far more violent. Businesses would sometimes hire private police to intimidate or rough up individual union members and leaders, or to physically disperse strikes; this was one of the main sources of revenue for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Likewise, union members would sometimes intimidate and rough up 'scabs' — temporary workers hired by the company — or damage equipment (monkey-wrenching) to slow or prevent production. Those tactics (mostly) disappeared in the US with the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and while many modern corporations still resist union formation (e.g. Amazon, which is aggressively opposing unionization), most companies that already have unions find collective bargaining more palatable than the alternative.

There is nothing intrinsically different about a public-sector union: i.e., unions for people working in essential public services like police, firefighters, air traffic controllers, metro workers, or the like. People employed in these areas face the same challenges and risks of exploitation as people in the private sector, and collective bargaining is a useful tool to ensure they receive adequate compensation and decent workplace environments. And yes, states and municipalities could decide to simply break the collectively-agreed upon contract, firing all workers who do not agree to new terms and suffering through the inevitable strikes and protests. However, there are two factors relevant to public-sector unions that are not seen in the private sector:

  • The ostensible 'employers' of public-sector workers are not private individuals but publicly elected officials; this gives public-sector unions a purely political impact that increases their bargaining power. A private-sector union is forced to deal with the management as given of the company they work for; a public-sector union can pour its resources into changing the management to something more sympathetic to its interests, using its political clout to elect people who will be inclined to agree with its demands.

  • The public itself becomes a hostage in union negotiations. Unlike a private-sector union squabble, in which the public might (at worst) be forced to turn to a different supplier for the duration, public-sector union squabbles can become immediate threats to the health and safety of the public at large. The public cannot help but be involved in public-sector union battles, because the public will have to 'do for itself' in the event that union members are fired or walk off the job. And obviously, health and safety are 'unlimited value' items for which almost any demand will be met — this is arguably the same reason that the privatized US health system has such exorbitantly high prices; people will pay what's needed to ensure their health — and this too dramatically increases the bargaining power of a public-sector union.

In short, the problem is not that police unions exists or that they could not be dissolved with a certain amount of risk and effort. The problem is that police unions have interests that are (in some cases) directly opposed to the health and safety of the public they ostensibly serve, and they have a strong bargaining position that allows them (in some cases) to enforce demands that are contrary to the public interest. Forcing police unions out of politics — perhaps as a conflict of interest — would be a good start, but until we make some fundamental legal distinctions between public and private-sector unions, the problem will persist.

Senior Wrangler
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Ted Wrigley
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  • To expand on your second bullet point: In some locales, public sector unions are legally forbidden from striking for that specific reason. – bta Jun 15 '20 at 18:35
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    In the USA there are going to be 1st Amendment issues if the government tries to force a group out of politics. – Paul Johnson Jun 17 '20 at 15:34
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    @PaulJohnson: the First Amendment is not airtight. Certain kinds of speech are already prohibited (slander/libel, incitement) and others are punishable if they are evaluated as corruption or collusion. One could make the case that police lobbying for certain kinds of protections or benefits at the expense of the public is political corruption, or even outright extortion. It would interesting to see how union lawyers would respond to that. – Ted Wrigley Jun 17 '20 at 15:47
  • @TedWrigley The union lawyers would cite Citizens United. – Paul Johnson Jun 17 '20 at 15:49
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It is certainly possible to ban police unions in a democratic country, as they are banned in the UK for instance. The Police Act 1996 says:

Subject to the following provisions of this section, a member of a police force shall not be a member of any trade union, or of any association having for its objects, or one of its objects, to control or influence the pay, pensions or conditions of service of any police force.

Now there is a Police Federation, which has some of the aims of a union, for example providing legal support for police officers. It just can't be a union, or do some of the things a union can like organize strikes.

There is a very similar law in the US relating to military personnel, so it seems to me that if similar provisions were extended to police officers, it wouldn't be obviously unconstitutional. However, the question wasn't whether the ban would be legal in the USA, so it's something of a moot point.

richardb
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  • I don't think this tracks without a lot of explanation. Military personnel are already held to have lesser 1A rights in the context of their service (which makes the referenced law constitutional) while police officers still have their 1A rights in common with other public employees. Another problem is that military personnel are federal employees and the federal government can make its own employment decisions but it would take some substantial contorting for the federal government to restrict state employment decisions. – gormadoc Jun 16 '20 at 16:17
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Can the police unions be dissolved permanently?

The best example here is Camden, NJ. They dismantled their police force because the previous union had been quite powerful, and had driven the salaries of the police force up to unsustainable levels

The transformation began after the 2012 homicide spike. The department wanted to put more officers on patrol but couldn’t afford to hire more, partly because of generous union contracts. So in 2013, the mayor and city council dissolved the local PD and signed an agreement for the county to provide shared services. The new county force is double the size of the old one, and officers almost exclusively patrol the city. (They were initially nonunion but have since unionized.)

You'll note the new police force is now unionized again. The catch here is that it is a public sector union, which gives it more clout than a private sector union. Chris Christie, former NJ gov, had it out with them a decade ago

The firestorm that these proposals have sparked demonstrates the political clout of state-workers' unions. Christie's executive order met with vicious condemnation from union leaders and the politicians aligned with them; his fight with the public-school teachers prompted the New Jersey Education Association to spend $6 million (drawn from members' dues) on anti-Christie attack ads over a two-month period. Clearly, the lesson for reform-minded politicians has been: Confront public-sector unions at your peril.

Public sector unions have the benefit of being able to support politicians who back them, which gives them an enormous advantage when it comes to negotiating benefits and representation. The unions are more likely to be negotiating with allies. It is therefore unlikely that police unions could be dissolved permanently, especially in states where they have been entrenched for decades.

Is it possible to ban police unions in a democratic country?

It is, but the catch is finding enough support for it. There's still a large segment that would like to see unionization expanded. That article argues for state-level negotiating power. It would be hard at a national level, considering that the concept of unionization has never polled in the negative

Machavity
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    You seem to be putting all the blame at the foot of unions and accepting (without balance IMO) that the unions were getting "generous union contracts" as the cause. You have presented a political anti-union position here and your point that the workers will re-unionize ASAP is lost in that. I would suggest trimming the political interpretation and leaving mostly the facts : a union was disbanded for political reasons and then a new one formed because it's what the new work force wanted. That's seems to be the core point relevant to the question asked. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jun 13 '20 at 19:42
  • Just to clarify, I could vote up an amended answer as I describe it, but as it stands the answer is too skewed (obviously IMO). – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jun 13 '20 at 19:43
  • The question of banning police unions is an interesting one in the current political environment, as the traditional allies of organized labor are mostly blue, and the present political sentiment against police generally (as opposed to repudiation of specific, individual police actions) is also mostly blue. – John Bollinger Jun 14 '20 at 00:05
  • @JohnBollinger Blue as in pro-police ("blue lives matter") or blue as in associated with politically right-wing? – gerrit Jun 15 '20 at 12:04
  • @gerrit, blue as in politically left wing. – John Bollinger Jun 15 '20 at 12:41
  • @JohnBollinger Huh, never seen blue to mean left wing before, blue normally means right-wing — left-wing is normally described as red (see also "red scare" for a historical American example). Do you mean blue as the dominant colour for peace flags (white dove on blue background)? – gerrit Jun 15 '20 at 13:58
  • @gerrit Could be a country thing. In the US red is typically Republican/Right and blue is typically Democrat/Left – Machavity Jun 15 '20 at 14:02
  • @Machavity I know US media nowadays use red for Republican and blue for Democrat (no clue why they got it the other way around compared to other countries), but I've never seen red used for right in general and blue for left more generally. Even in the US, the "red scare" certainly means fear for the far left, not fear for the far right ("brown scare"?) – gerrit Jun 15 '20 at 14:12
  • @gerrit See also the classic "better dead than red [communist]" – Sam OT Jun 15 '20 at 15:11
  • @gerrit, the US Republican and Democrat parties swapped ideologies between 1860 and 1930, or so. It was a slow switch and because the names didn't change, the color didn't, presumably so citizens could still recognize the parties. https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html Originally, they were the same party that split, but that's going even further off topic. – computercarguy Jun 15 '20 at 19:36
  • @gerrit, Wikipedia provides some background for this usage in the U.S., and remarks that this color assignment indeed manifests a reversal of prior convention. I am not at all surprised to hear that that reversal is U.S.-specific, but it is very well established here. My apologies, however, for that making my comment ambiguous. – John Bollinger Jun 15 '20 at 20:45
  • @gerrit The USA used to regularly flip the colours between Republican and Democrat - they both used to use logos that were half-red and half-blue, with white stars, and neither had/have an official colour. The "Red" and "Blue" convention was adopted in the year 2000 Presidential Election among the press, as a convenient "shorthand". Before then, different Media Corporations used different colours (e.g. in 1996, CNN used Red for Republican and Blue for Democrat, while Time used the opposite, NBC used to use Blue for "incumbent", and other channels swapped the colours every 4 years.) – Chronocidal Jun 16 '20 at 10:23
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Yes. There are already laws in the United States that prohibit unions for military service personnel. See US Code Ch. 10-976:

(b) It shall be unlawful for a member of the armed forces, knowing of the activities or objectives of a particular military labor organization—
    (1) to join or maintain membership in such organization; or
    (2) to attempt to enroll any other member of the armed forces as a member of such organization.

(c) It shall be unlawful for any person—
    (1) to enroll in a military labor organization any member of the armed forces or to solicit or accept dues or fees for such an organization from any member of the armed forces; or
    (2) to negotiate or bargain, or attempt through any coercive act to negotiate or bargain, with any civilian officer or employee, or any member of the armed forces, on behalf of members of the armed forces, concerning the terms or conditions of service of such members;
    (3) to organize or attempt to organize, or participate in, any strike, picketing, march, demonstration, or other similar form of concerted action involving members of the armed forces that is directed against the Government of the United States and that is intended to induce any civilian officer or employee, or any member of the armed forces, to...

See the link for the full code, but it's a comprehensive ban on any activity that Unions engage in for all members of the US Armed Forces.

There's no legal or political (I.E. procedural) reason that this could not be made applicable to the Police too, so it's certainly possible.

Dan Scally
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  • Its not simple, but in general the US military operates under its own parallel judicial and legal system: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1131/rights-of-military-personnel . Bringing the police under a similar system would be a challenge, and might well be rejected by the courts on the grounds that the needs of the police for discipline are not the same as the military. E.g. it is not a crime for a police officer to fail to comply with a direct order, police officers can resign, etc. – Paul Johnson Jun 18 '20 at 15:42
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Is it possible to ban police unions in a democratic country?

No. Unions are an expression of the First Amendment to peacefully assemble.

Can the police unions be dissolved permanently?

A particular union might be, but only if it is deemed a criminal organization. That's a high bar, and it's barely ever reached.

Even if this happens, nothing prevents cops from starting a new police union afterwards.

Note that the constitution does not grant any privileges to unions. The city council would be free to ignore any union, if there is no state law granting special privileges (but many states grant such privileges). But the question is about banning unions, not about retracting its privileges.

Sjoerd
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    That doesn’t seem accurate. Republicans have been fighting, quite successfully, to weaken or destroy other unions, particularly public-sector ones. Why would police unions be different? – divibisan Jun 12 '20 at 14:49
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    @divibisan I think distinction has to be made between ‘destroying’ unions by making them not economically viable due to not giving them privileges that would make membership interesting or compulsory and between banning them / dissolving them by a law. The above answer seems to focus on the latter not former – 1muflon1 Jun 12 '20 at 15:14
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    @divibisan The Constitution doesn't mention any privileges for unions. Nowhere is stated that they should have any say in budget negotiations. But the question is about the union itself, not about its privileges. – Sjoerd Jun 12 '20 at 15:22
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    Removing the privileges of a union, in particular 1) collective bargaining powers and 2) not allowing dues to be required, are effectively union-killers. "Unions" can still exist without these, but they effectively become just issue lobbyists, they don't have any of the normal powers of a union. – Bryan Krause Jun 12 '20 at 22:46
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    Nothig prevents the police from forming a union, but if that union commits criminal acts, such as accessory before & after the fact to various crimes committed by its members (by contract provisions that act to shield them from disclipinary measures), then the officers of the union could be prosecuted. Prosecute & convict enough of them, and perhaps the rest would get the message. – jamesqf Jun 13 '20 at 03:38
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    "Unions are an expression of the First Amendment to peacefully assemble." is not an answer to "Is it possible to ban police unions in a democratic country?". There are democratic countries that have neither the U.S. constitution nor a first amendment. – Guntram Blohm Jun 14 '20 at 09:27
  • As far as I can see you are the only person who answered the asked question and did not feel the need to add political opinions or arguments of their own. Well done. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jun 14 '20 at 14:08
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    A group of workers would have a First Amendment right to agree among themselves that none of them will work for employers who aren't willing to offer terms that are acceptable to all of them. I see nothing in the First Amendment, however, that would require that the government forbid employers that doesn't want to offer such terms to instead offer whatever terms they want, and allow the workers to either accept the terms or quit as they see fit. If all of the workers who are qualified to perform certain tasks would agree to demand certain terms, employers needing those tasks performed may... – supercat Jun 14 '20 at 18:18
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    ...find themselves unable to get them done without agreeing to the union's terms, but if there are enough non-union workers to fulfill an employer's needs, the First Amendment should, if anything, grant the employer the right to select union or non-union workers as it sees fit. – supercat Jun 14 '20 at 18:20
  • @supercat I don't understand the reason for your comment. I already state "Note that the constitution does not grant any privileges to unions." – Sjoerd Jun 14 '20 at 22:13
  • @StephenG Thank you. Five persons thought this answer deserved a down vote, though. – Sjoerd Jun 14 '20 at 22:14
  • @GuntramBlohmsupportsMonica The question is tagged "United-States." And most democratic countries have a similar clause in their constitution (I'm Dutch and I know ours has one). – Sjoerd Jun 14 '20 at 22:19
  • @Sjoerd: Unions may legitimately acquire significant power if all of the people with important skills want to join. A city would not always be able to "ignore" a public-employee union. The power of unions would be limited, however, based upon the difference in skill between the union workers and non-union alternative. – supercat Jun 14 '20 at 23:17
  • @Sjoerd The question may be tagged with [tag:United-States], but it asks about "in a democratic country", which is generic. And, considering that a key concern of the BLM movement is the violence employed by the unionised Police, I'm not sure that "peaceably assemble" entirely applies, either. – Chronocidal Jun 15 '20 at 10:18
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    I downvoted this answer, on the grounds that it's outright wrong. Some unions are banned in the US; specifically military unions. The implication of the answer is that the constitution prevents this from happening, and that is not the case. – Dan Scally Jun 15 '20 at 10:24
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    @DanScally Military is an exception for many rules - they don't get an investigation if they apply deadly force during their work, while cops and everyone else do. – Sjoerd Jun 16 '20 at 10:14
  • @DanScally Sjoerd is right, military unions are banned precisely because military personnel do not get all the 1A rights other public employees have. – gormadoc Jun 16 '20 at 18:09
  • @Sjoerd the military are investigated if they inappropriately use deadly force during their work, just like cops. – Dan Scally Jun 16 '20 at 19:14
  • @gormadoc Nothing in the First Amendment says "this shall not apply to members of the armed forces". If you've anything better than "the military are different" then I'd love to hear it; but as it stands the answer is wrong. – Dan Scally Jun 16 '20 at 19:24
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    @DanScally https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/417/733/ "while military personnel are not excluded from First Amendment protection, the fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it." – gormadoc Jun 16 '20 at 20:21
  • @gormadoc that's not really contradicting what I'm saying man; a decision was made that regardless of the lack of exemption in the constitution, certain people ought be excluded from its protections nonetheless. Why, given that decision was made once, would you assume that it cannot be made again, should it become politically expedient? The military are not different just because. – Dan Scally Jun 16 '20 at 20:58
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    @DanScally if you read the actual decision there are numerous reasons given for a meaningful differentiation between military and civilian society. The reasons include purpose, tradition, and precedent. I don't need to list those reasons specifically because it is sufficient to cite current SC precedent that military personnel can suffer more 1A restrictions to say that military personnel can constitutionally suffer more 1A restrictions. – gormadoc Jun 16 '20 at 21:11
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    @gormadoc I feel like we're going in circles here, so I probably won't reply again. Nothing you're saying is contradicting my point, which is that all you're saying is that the SC has only ruled military personnel can suffer more first amendment restrictions so far. You've pointed to nothing that precludes a further ruling that the police force can suffer equivalent restrictions (because of whatever justification is necessary. Note that in the UK, cops are legally barred from forming a Union just like the military - this 'aint even new territory). Without that, this answer is wrong. – Dan Scally Jun 17 '20 at 19:04
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – gormadoc Jun 17 '20 at 19:35