I think unions have a sort of self-policing (no pun intended) responsibility to the society at large, and in this case the cops union needs to get its ears pinned back by the other unions.

Good pun.

Precisely. The whole reason for unions is to protect the workers. When one union is not just constantly and consistently ignoring atrocities against society but defending them, they are not doing any service to anyone. That includes the people they represent. I believe that the way the NYPD are acting, the slow down especially, is hurting them as much as it is society on a whole.

Although, from what I have read, it hasn't really seemed to have changed anything as far as crime goes.

It's not an easy decision to make, but the police union has been making it easier.

I've read that PBA isn't the only cop Union in NYC, I wonder if anyone here knows any more about if that is true?

The PBA not being in the AFL-CIO explains a lot. Unions aren't perfect on race issues, but the Federation has a common mandate to fight racism and other social injustice.

I hope someone answers. If it's like Missouri, there's at least one more.

That's what I argued a month ago.

I'm glad other unions appear to be making efforts to distance themselves from more corrupt unions.

as enforcers of the capitalist system of property relations, I don't think that police unions should be considered working class organizations anyway. So I think this would be a good move. The beating of that on duty transit worker (who is a member of the Transit Workers Union) by the off-duty cop in NYC will probably speed the process.

It's like "How can we make ourselves even more dead meat to the eyes of the public?"

(This is kind of a side-bar story: my husband taught English in an agricultural village in Mexico with a co-op structure. The local "cops" were rotating volunteers from the village who served set terms. The only thing they had was a stick that wasn't a weapon, but a badge of office. There was hardly any crime, they mostly settled disputes.

I don't know if that can be scaled up, but I feel there are some lessons there...!)

I'm not sure it would need to be scaled up. If each neighborhood had it's own group of "police" that were charged by the neighbors with settling disputes and protecting persons and personal property (whatever the neighborhood considered personal property) rather than "private" property, I believe that could work. But it would take a LOT more organizing within everyone's neighborhood.

The whole point is to create dual power structures that take the place of the "official" ones and then build them to the point where THEY are the go-to rather than the official ones.

Designed specifically to keep them hired.