As the body camera and street surveillance footage from Tyre Nichols’ death sparked outrage, a new book argued that police and other public labor unions need to be disbanded. About half of the 14.3 million union members work in public-sector jobs.
As the family of Tyre Nichols endures the release of the video of the young Black man’s fatal traffic stop with Memphis police, and the nation still smarts from the civilian-filmed 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis cops, a book hitting this week argues it’s time to disband the public labor unions that its author says make it nearly impossible to discipline improper police behavior before people get hurt and the public’s trust is shattered.
“When you’re splitting the pie between capital and labor, if labor pushes too hard, the company could go overseas,” he said. “In the public sector, government can’t move out of town and it’s not the money of officials we’re dealing with, it’s taxpayer money.” The Memphis Police Association’s collective bargaining agreement with the city is available online. While the agreement leaves management rights with city officials, it contains a four-step grievance process that always ends in binding arbitration. In other words, it’s hard to fire a cop.
And public unions dominate the labor landscape. Of the 14.3 million people that the Department of Labor says are currently union members, almost half, 7.1 million, work in public-sector jobs. That means about one out of every three government workers is in a union. In the private sector, where the unionization rate is 6%, about one out of every 17 workers is unionized.
“Officials are regularly confronted with challenges and crises that no one predicted. In these situations, officials need to adapt and to redeploy resources,” Howard says. “But public unions see their responsibilities as bounded by the literal terms of their contracts. Any deviation in routine, no matter how insignificant or how large, provides a basis to refuse to pitch in.
Howard dedicates part of the book to the messy territory of public pensions and retirement savings plans, which some argue should evolve to more closely resemble private-sector 401s or risk continuing to saddle communities with untenable debt. And he explains what that looks like. Executive branch officials no longer have the authority needed to fulfill their democratic responsibilities, writes Howard. Eliminating accountability and supervisory judgment removed the main tools of public managers. What is left are facades of governing institutions without the activating powers for executive officials to make things work.
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