Students say kick cops out of union because … racism

It’s always fun to watch liberal utopia melt down in real time. Here’s a good one: from the intersection of big labor and racial oversensitivity.

United Auto Workers Local 2865, the University of California student-worker union, recently sent a letter to the AFL-CIO asking the union to sever ties with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) because police officer unions do not represent the interest of workers.

Why? Because cops are racists and they work for oppressors. And oppressors hate workers, especially black ones. Duh, bro.

From the letter:

We, UAW Local 2865, call on the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to end their affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations. It is our position that this organization is inimical to both the interests of labor broadly, and Black workers in particular. Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests of police as laborers. Instead, their “unionization” allows police to masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the working-class. We ask that the AFL-CIO recognize this history and take steps to serve the interests of its Black workers and community members.

Cops, the students concede, are workers but are different because they represent “the militarized, coercive arm of the state.”

A state that, according to the students, is especially abusive to minorities.

They contend that recent events show that it is too hard to get rid of bad cops because of their union protections, a problem exacerbated by racist history.

They wrote:

Police unions in particular emerge out of a long history of police intervention in labor politics and its complicity in racial violence. The modern U.S. institution of the police has roots in the repressive demands of powerful white capitalists. Overseers and slave patrols in the South evolved alongside the growing need to maintain “order” in early urban areas in the North. In fact, armed “night watches” mirrored policing practices by being a front line of defense against Native American raids on colonies. Policing in the U.S. has always served the needs of colonialism, racism, and capitalism by protecting the property of those who would steal land and exploit the labor of others. Neither the property of indigenous people nor the products of the labor of both workers and slaves has ever come under protection of the institution of the police. It has only ever been the property of the powerful that the police protect. Maintaining this system of relations is the so called “order” that police have sworn to defend.

Whoa.

There is certainly an argument to be made against current and past police practices. And one against police unions — really, against public labor unions in general. But this isn’t it.

Dennis Slocumb, the IUPA’s legislative director, said the student letter was hard to take seriously.

Dude, what a racist, facist.

The post Students say kick cops out of union because … racism appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/students-say-kick-cops-out-of-union-because-racism/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/students-say-kick-cops-out-of-union-because-racism/