Everyone loves unions, somehow they overlook the outrageous power of police unions to keep terrible people in their ranks. Also Union actions against nonunion jobs are borderline criminal most of the time.
The economic argument for unions is that they provide a counterweight towards corporate monopoly powers. But in a public setting, the opposition are voters and taxpayers.
We as voters can say we want schools to re-open or police to be held accountable for their actions, and they can collectively bargain against our wishes. So, by their nature public sector unions are vaguely anti-democratic.
Consider that the public sector unions can donate to the political campaigns of the politicians they are at the bargaining table with and it becomes a little less vague.
This causes issues in a situation like serious misconduct, where it's entirely reasonable to fire the individual. However, a union will have strong grounds to make sure those policies are enforced fairly - and they simply aren't, it'll be allowed to slide if it isn't in the headlines. The problem isn't that it happened, it's that it ended up in the news!
As for whether it's because police management is all former union, they're just collecting a paycheck, or what - I'm not sure. But where you see the power of police unions, I see the incompetence of police management. If that's intractable, I do agree that police unions are bad because there's no opposition.
In comparison, a big company typically maintains a single goal - to make money. There will be exceptions of course, but as a whole, it's a coherent goal and things will be done at all levels to support it. There are the same sorts of issues with minor misconduct, since it's irrelevant to making money, but big issues are typically bad for business and thus there is strong motivation to enforce rules like "don't choke people" or "don't steal stuff".
They try to make up for the lack of responsibility of corporations towards their workers, which is important (keeps them in check), but then there is the issue of bureaucratic bloat and power concentration within unions (organizers, lawyers etc.) so they can become detached from the actual workers and their trade. At the same time there are highly skilled workers with high work ethic who benefit less from unions than their peers.
In my opinion a an ideal union is organized bottom up. Lawyers and organizers are there to support union workers and most importantly don't create a hierarchical structure where all negotiations happen at the top. Secondly a union should strive for the highest quality and work ethic among their workers. One should be proud to be part of one and have values and principles to strive for.
No, this is exactly what police unions should be doing. My problem is when elected officials and judges kiss their asses and defer to them on the subjects of public safety and civil rights.
I'm stunned by how much weight public officials and journalists give to the opinions of police about the causes of crime, the motivations of the people who commit them, and the punishments that criminals deserve. Who cares what they think about the justice system? Tell me about hitting people with sticks, directing traffic, or leaving the military with no real job prospects.
But aside from that, police are often underpaid and overworked, have to deal with workplace safety and harassment, not given anonymous channels to complain, etc. just like everybody who works. They need unions to fight for those things. Police unions are awful and racist because the police are awful and racist. The union should be working for them, not for racial justice. If you want police unions to be less racist, hire fewer racist police, and don't demand that they operate in a racist manner.
When I hear people complain about public unions, I hear people that are disapproving of unions when they're the ones in the position of employer. It's basically being pro-union except for the one at the business you own, who are clearly just outside agitators with an evil agenda making trouble and trying to destroy your family.
It's common, though. Center-left media outlets hate unions in their newsrooms as much as they love unions at e.g. Amazon.
Unions represent their members' interests, that's the entire point of unions. It says more about the entire profession of policing (i.e. that there are so many terrible officers that the not-terrible ones can't do anything about them) than it does about unions, to be honest.
There are two unions representing metro train drivers in London, and I have little respect for RMT since they've gone on strike to defend a driver who was sacked for turning up drunk to work[1]. The other union (ASLEF) seems more reasonable.
When an issue is important to both unions (e.g. pay for nighttime services) they wield considerable power. If only RMT strike, there's significant disruption but trains still run.
[1] https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2015/februa... / https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/07/london-under...
It's hard to argue they don't serve their members' interests - admittedly to the detriment of the rest of society. Given a choice, who wouldn't like a 500lb gorilla like that in their own corner?