The New York Times explores the radical history of police unions

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: The New York Times explores the radical history of police unions | Boing Boing

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[paulbeard]

This might not be the case everywhere but some of these associations are guilds, not unions, and more aligned with enforcing power than protecting workers rights. Seattle’s police guild was voted out of the MLKing labor council last year for its behavior during the public demonstrations on 2020. Interesting that immunity and impunity only differ by one letter…

[moortaktheundea]

There is a lot of additional information in the Behind the Bastards miniseries, Behind the Police. It starts with a history of American policing, but gets pretty deep into the development of the police unions. Behind the Police | iHeartRadio

[ClutchLinkey]

Also, less specific to unions, but Throughline did a “history of police in America” that aired locally this weekend:

Policing in America : Throughline

Just over an hour.

[gracchus]

Police unions: the only unions that American conservatives and Libertarians find acceptable. I wonder why…

[AlexG55]

Weirdly, this may be a specifically American thing. I haven’t heard anything about the police unions here in the Netherlands exerting that sort of power.

Of course, the Netherlands is weird in that even the military is unionized!