Uniting Against Police Associations

by Catherine Safley

Since February of 2021, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles has been hosting the End Police Associations weekly rallies on Wednesday afternoons, directly across from the offices of Los Angeles Police Protective League. The campaign has created a wave of public discourse around the subject; sadly, much of this discourse has misleadingly referred to police associations as “unions.”

Labor unions are a vital force for protecting workers’ rights. Unions were created to consolidate and leverage the collective power of workers as a form of protection against an exploitative owning class who they would not be able to legally contend with as individuals. White People 4 Black Lives and BLM-LA are completely in support of labor unions.

However, there’s a reason why we are using the truthful term “police associations” rather than the deceptive “police unions”: police associations are not labor unions. Where unions exist to protect workers from exploitation by rich employers and powerful companies, police associations are a means for law enforcement to leverage and abuse the disproportionate power that has already been vested in them by the government, weaponizing their perceived status as unionized workers to undermine and shut down community-led efforts to hold police accountable. In fact, police have always been at the forefront of efforts to stop workers from unionizing; the owning class has worked alongside police since the very inception of unions to violently bust unionizing efforts.

Police associations have not only used their power to harm unionizing efforts of everyday workers, they have used it to increase the power of police departments. Police associations leverage their power to gain more funding, more weapons and more tech every year, leading to more violence against Black communities and other vulnerable groups. They lobby to shield officers who kill people in our communities, block defunding efforts, and prevent legal reforms. They use their power to bribe and elevate the platforms of politicians who support them, giving campaign endorsements and donations to help pro-cop politicians to win elections and influence law and policy. At the same time, police associations will strong-arm and attack political leaders who are vocal about reform and curtailing the power of law enforcement, coercing those leaders to abandon their stances or risk their political career and personal safety. All of these tactics on the part of police associations create a roadblock against efforts to hold police accountable. Defunding the police and ending police associations are two branches of the same abolitionist tree.

For too long U.S. police forces have used their power to oppress and attack Black communities and other marginalized communities. Every time reforms are attempted they have ultimately been ineffective at changing this reality. We believe that the way to end police violence is by taking away their power to harm vulnerable communities. Police associations are one of the biggest roadblocks on the path to real community safety. It is vital that we as white people show up in support of efforts to end police associations, for the safety of our Black community members and our communities as a whole.

In support of the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles End Police Associations campaign, WP4BL is hosting an online workshop on September 14th that will dive deeper into the history of police associations, how they differ from labor unions, and why we support BLM’s efforts to abolish them. We understand how important it is to be informed when choosing where to place your support, and hope you will join us as we deepen our understanding of the crucial effort to end police unions.

This piece was written as a collaborative effort by members of White People 4 Black Lives. WP4BL is a white anti-racist collective and activist project of the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere (AWARE-LA) and operates within a national network of white anti-racists called Showing Up for Racial Justice. WP4BL is rooted in acting in solidarity with Black Lives Matter: Los Angeles. Visit www.awarela.org and follow us @wp4bl.