Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Common Dreams is consistently pro-union and progressive and, at the same time, consistently in favor of racial and economic justice. Sometimes, though, those positions can be irreconcilable. The unqualified support of police unions is a case in point.

And here’s a further conundrum: police deserve the support of their union when “small-p” politics intercedes in their livelihood the same way teachers deserve the support of their union in similar circumstances. It’s conceivable that a policeman who crosses his supervisor might be dismissed by a chief who is Trumpian in his behavior. In such a case that individual would deserve the right to due process, the kind of due process that a union guarantees even if the elected officials in the community want to uphold the dismissal in an effort to show their support for the chief.

As for teachers, no one questions the union when they rally around a teacher who is dismissed or disciplined because they assign a controversial book. But when a teacher accused of striking a child or worse is assigned to a “rubber room” in New York City the union is castigated. Are there some offenses committed by teachers that no union should support? Are there some offenses by employees that no union should support? Are there some offenses that unions defend that “dishonor the labor movement”? If so, should the union be expelled from the AFL-CIO?

I find myself agreeing with the AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka—who has in the past characterized criminal justice reform as a labor issue, who is quoted as saying: “the short answer is not to disengage and just condemn. The answer is to totally re-engage and educate,”

I would suggest that this re-engagment and education not be limited to police unions. EVERY union should take a long look at which employees they defend.

Source: ‘These Unions Dishonor the Labor Movement’: Nearly 200 Academics, Lawmakers, and Activists Demand AFL-CIO Expel Police Unions