We haven’t had a post on this little freakout in Minneapolis, led by apparently right-wing KSTP. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to this nontroversy, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges had a staged photo-op at a canvassing event where she and a volunteer were photographed pointing. Some cops, who are pissed at Hodges for remarks about her administration’s quest to improve the reputation of the police force, told the credulous hacks at KSTP that Hodges was really throwing gang signs with the volunteer, who is a black and on probation. KSTP has been backed by the head of the Minneapolis police union, John Delmonico, who has a reputation for reflexively backing cops no matter the circumstance. Despite the protests and social media blowup, the chairman of the company that owns KSTP has said they won’t apologize.
Yesterday, Hodges wrote a scathing reply on her blog, calling out Delmonico by name and indicating she won’t back down either.
Let me be clear on this final point. There is a critical difference between our good officers who have a bad day on the job, and officers, however few, who have a standing habit of mistreatment and poor judgment when relating to the public, particularly people of color. I am as concerned with the negative effects of this conduct on the police department as a whole as I am with its effects on our community. I am convinced that we can change it, even if it takes years.
If the fourth option [Delmonico is fucking with me] is correct, my commitment to this work means that the head of the police union or other detractors will pitch more stories that attempt to defame that work and its leaders to various media outlets. So be it. I know the charge that I have been given by the people of Minneapolis and by my own conscience. I will continue to follow that charge.
This is the problem with unions as a vehicle for reclaiming fair wages for the middle class. When people think of unions, they think of organizations led by the John Delmonicos of the world, which is to say that they think of sclerotic, reactionary institutions committed to the status quo, which will defend the shoddy work of the least of their members. Fair or not, that perception was reinforced in the last two weeks in Minneapolis.
Update: Reading further on this, I see that Police Chief Janeé Harteau was at the event where the non-gang non-signs were not thrown. Harteau is a long-time member of the department who won a discrimination lawsuit, is married to her long-time female partner and has fired 6 officers for misconduct in two years in office. So this little dribble from the puke funnel was a two-fer: Harteau and Hodges.
c u n d gulag
Pointergate?
More like PinHeadGate.
big ole hound
Right on. The problem unions created for themselves all revolves around pensions and who controls them. Companies and cites kicked the can down the road by giving larger and earlier pensions during union negotiations and drawing less blowback in the press. Then it came back to haunt them and the unions became the fall guys to the point that management started declaring bankruptcy to get out of these contracts. I think both sides can take some blame but the unions sure voted in some thugs as frontmen.
D58826
You have to forgive the folks in Minneapolis since their brains have not thawed out from last winter’s polar vortex and this winter is already upon them.
samiam
How’s that “mission accomplished” probe landed on a comet post workin for ya muckymux? Doing your impression of G Dubya landing on an aircraft carrier in your rush to post your click bait.
D58826
@big ole hound: One thing you have to remember when looking at public sector union pensions. That is the public sector employees don’t get social security so the pension is the entire retirement plan. Whiter it is right or wrong that private sector employees don’t have pension plans anymore they still have social security to fall back on. I’m not excusing all of the issues with public pension plans but its an apples to oranges comparison when looking at public vs private. I should qualify that as public employees who have never worked in the private sector. Even if they have their government service does not accrue quarterly soc. sec. credits so at 65 they will get a smaller soc. sec check
NotMax
OT, but a notice of import:
4 a.m. here and received a call purporting to be a “final notice before lawsuit is filed against you by the IRS.”
It’s a scam, as was made obvious by receiving the call at such a ridiculous hour and also a little internet checking substantiated.
Should any of you receive these calls, go to the Treasury Dept. Inspector General for Tax Administration site, where there is a big red box labeled “IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting” in the upper right hand corner.
If Yatsuno shows up he can, I’m sure, confirm that the IRS makes any such legitimate contact by mail, not by phone.
Chris
Does it really make that big a difference in perception that the police union regularly act like dickbags protecting the worst of their kind? Seems to me that the kind of people who back the police unions in protecting their thugs aren’t the kind of people who support unions in any other context, and conversely, people who protest the most against this kind of behavior don’t tend to be the kind of people who embrace blanket anti-union sentiment.
MattF
@NotMax: Yeah, I got one of those phone calls. They left a message on my answering machine– with a return phone number! Unfortunately I deleted the message before realizing it might have been useful evidence. But, clearly, the scammers are quite evil and entirely shameless.
ETA: The major scam giveaway was that they identified themselves as the ‘Internal Revenue Services’. Give me a break.
NotMax
Many, many, many moons ago, worked for a very short time in the KSTP-TV news department.
At that time the station was owned by 20th Century Fox, which then barely had two shekels to rub together, thus the facilities were rundown and shabby.
Then the first Star Wars came out. When went back for a visit sometime after that became a Colossal Hit, couldn’t help but notice that the place had been showered with new equipment, refurbished studios and a cosmetic facelift.
PattyP
@Chris: I think it does; I’m a liberal who thinks that unions were great for the middle class, but also thinks that many current unions are horrible organizations. These police unions don’t help. In Philadelphia they have cops who are frequently disciplined for bad behavior. They cost the city millions in payouts to their victims. Yet it is impossible to fire them because the union gets them reinstated. This does make people, even those who generally favor the union concept, think badly of unions.
The recent conviction of some members of the ironworkers local doesn’t help either of course – they were using arson and other tactics to intimidate non-union builders.
VOR
The whole thing was insane from the start. First, the accusation was that the Mayor was showing gang signs. The Mayor. Second, KSTP ignored the fact that the Chief of Police was present at this event and standing just off camera. I mean, do you seriously think the Mayor was showing gang signs to press cameras with the Chief of Police standing there watching? Does that pass the smell test?
I will give some credit to KSTP. These were not anonymous accusations. The retired police officer appeared on camera. The head of the Police Federation also appeared on camera.
Bobby B.
Our right wing union bustin’ friends are mysteriously silent on getting rid of police or prison guard unions. In their own world they’re respecting their Masters, no matter how murderous or larcenous the police get. The PoliceOne blog is good for hate-reading, not that I read it. Much.
d58826
@Bobby B.: Follow the campaign contributions. Why do you think the coips were not included in Walkers union busting legislation.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Distasteful as it is, that is 100% part of his job.
And to be very clear, that is NOT what he is doing here. He is not backing any cops against accusations. He’s trying to take out the mayor.
Yatsuno
@NotMax: @MattF: You are correct, and you both should make contact. I haven’t talked to my TIGTA people in awhile (they’re in Seattle and both nice, in fact one of the agents is damn hot & kind of a flirt) but I can tell you they will want as much information as you can give. They contact you within 24-48 hours of making the report. And thanks for spreading this info. Someone else here got that call but I forget who. Please, if ANYONE you know gets that phone call have them contact TIGTA via website (www.tigta.gov) or by calling 1-800-366-4484.
dmsilev
@Yatsuno: I got one of those calls a few months ago. It was a voicemail, and it’s long since been deleted so I’m afraid I can’t provide any more specific info than that.
Gian
@Bobby B.:
the afternoon drive time hate radio jocks bash prison guard unions here in LA, all the time, at least when it’s not teachers, or parking enforcement, or road repair people.
they’re all lazy “government workers” who are totally protected by a union while they goldbrick and retire with 140% of pay at age 45.
and if it’s not government workers, it’s fast food workers who should shut up and “get a real job” or hotel employees.
no-one actually earns a paycheck through hard work, except think tankers for the right wing who advocate low wages and more tax cuts and deregulation.
but gang signs? really? that kind of lie smacks of desperation and has the scent of potential civil liability to go with it.
(it’s the two new jersey transplants out here who do the afternoon hate radio show)
Villago Delenda Est
@samiam: derp
derp
derp
Cacti
Complaining about a union chief defending members is similar to complaining about attorneys defending persons accused of crimes. It fundamentally misunderstands the role of each.
Union leadership is responsible for ensuring that even the worst of their members receive due process under the terms of the CBA. The alternative is “right to work” where management can terminate you because they don’t like the color of your tie.
Trying to whip the local community into a racist frenzy against the mayor isn’t part of Delmonico’s job, and for that he deserves to be called out.
indycat32
@D58826: May I ask what you consider a public sector job? I worked for the State of California and the State of Indiana (I consider those public sector). I paid into SS in both jobs and I now have full SS benefits plus pensions from both states.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF:
Shorter: They’re Rethuglicans.
OK, this is hilarious. Sounds like the Chinese gold sellers you see in WoW, who talk about “golds” and “gears”.
FWIW, yesterday’s expansion launch of WoW had a lot of problems, to include apparently a DDOS attack. Probably originating in China.
Pee Cee
@Bobby B.:
They’re just saving those unions for last. When the time comes, you’ll see the same rhetoric applied against these as was applied against teachers.
Cacti
@indycat32:
Every federal employee hired since 1984 also pays into Social Security retirement and is eligible for it, in addition to their FERS pension. The old CSRS retirement system was considerably more generous, and that’s why it was done away with by Reagan.
MattF
@Pee Cee: Well, sure. Remember PATCO (the air-traffic controllers union)? They officially supported Reagan, so I didn’t feel much sympathy for them. Conservatives hate unions. All unions. Period.
hamletta
@Yatsuno: My stepdad got one of those calls, and he fell for it long enough to withdraw a chunk o’ change. He then had second thoughts and re-deposited the money. But he still headed to the Safeway with the crooks on the phone so he could pretend to buy the prepaid debit cards he was supposed to pay his “back taxes” with.
The guy at the Safeway was aware of the scam and called it out as such.
By this time, Stepdad was just fucking with them and keeping them on the phone, so he got them going, and they threatened to send the sheriff to pick him up, and he was like, “Yeah, right. Tell ’em to come on down!”
We didn’t report it, though, because it was all over the local news (DC) and that Web site is kind of a PITA. Stepdad wasn’t eager to provide more details that weren’t already in his glorious tale.
hamletta
@Cacti: Some states substitute their pension funds for SocSec. I think Illinois is one of them.
negative 1
Sorry guys but as a person who works for a union this is total bullsh!t. We don’t, as per the right and apparently this article, have a magic mind-control ray that makes our members progressive. Most are conservative, actually, and we struggle to make them understand that their instinctive choices for government positions a.) hate them and b.) want to enact policies which would cost them money or their jobs.
See, the thing is at the heart of it unions are democratically controlled by their members, who elect their presidents, and ultimately the people who best reflect their views. So if your membership is a bunch of racist morons then guess who they are going to get to speak for them? Also, “he has a history of reflexively backing cops”? The head of the cops union? The hell you say. Next you’re going to tell me defense attorneys defend criminals.
negative 1
@Pee Cee: Doubtful — they generally vote republican. They even endorse republicans. It’s just that they’re so small in terms of membership that no one notices. However, here in RI in the pension lawsuit we have going on the state police union scuttled the deal that every other effected union voted to proceed with. They’re not always on the same page as the rest of labor. But obviously as per this article that means that any other good that unions do, including being the largest contributors to many democratic races, is obviously problematic. Good luck having Greenpeace or MoveOn make up that difference, though.
negative 1
@Cacti: It generally varies by employer. Our union deals on the municipal level in RI and it varies by municipality based on how the workers voted back in the 70s. However there are a LOT of state or municipal employees in any state who don’t get SS. Most state or municipal pensions have different funding formulas for those districts where people do or don’t get SS.
RSR
@Cacti: I think it varies by jurisdiction.
For instance, Philadelphia public teachers pay into both a state wide pension system for educators and social security. But I know in some areas, teachers pay into only a pension and do not pay into SS.
PA State Police, last I discussed with a trooper buddy of mine, do not pay into social security. They have a separate state employees pension system.
All in all, I think contribution rates across those systems ended up being pretty similar.
NotMax
@Yatsuno
Thank you..
In fact, perhaps a front pager might care to highlight this scam, if for no other reason than to alleviate agita amongst the readers here.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@negative 1: Thank you for posting this. There are so few unions left that most people have no idea how they work or who belongs to them these days.
Union members are a fair cross section of America, and that means about half of them vote Republican, and a good number of them, not having thought it through, would like to see their own union eliminated. Union leadership spends most of their time fighting this mindset, not fighting management. As far as them being the last bastions of progressivism, well, forget that. If you want to find the last bastions of true progressives, go to a college in Northern California. You’ll want to avoid UC Berkeley as you’ll probably just end up getting mugged.
Uncle Cholmondeley
According to this story, Delmonico or some other cop also tried pitching this “story” to the Minneapolis paper, which sensibly ignored it.
Villago Delenda Est
@negative 1: It’s shocking that people with an authoritarian mindset would gravitate towards the party which values authoritarianism as a major component of its ideology.
Whocouldanode?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
The Minneapolis PD is terrible. I’ve interacted with members of a dozen or so police outfits around the country at various times and I have consistently had the worst experience with the MPD. Whether it’s acting like assholes or forging timecards for off duty work two different employers of mine have hired them for (and if you need traffic direction, you have no alternative but to keep hiring them anyway), they are just awful.
One part of the problem is that during the progressive era, the police department was largely removed from the authority of the city’s elected officials. Other than appointing the police chief, the city government has almost no way to enforce authority over the police. So they’ve run wild. Hodges is the first mayor to take them on so directly and it’s going to get ugly.
japa21
We have not gotten the IRS call yet, though it will probably come soon. We have gotten a call from the US Department of Grants (is that a new cabinet position?) saying we were selected to receive an $8,000 grant, tax free and with no requirement for it to be repaid. All we had to do was give them our bank info and SS number. I let them go on for a while and then informed them that despite my age, I am not a complete nincompoop.
The other call I have recieved a couple times is supposedly from Microsoft customer service stating they have received error message from our system and if I would just give them access to my computer they would fix whatever the problem was.
I swear, I don’t know if they utilize some system that fixates on folks over 65 or what.
What was interesting is that there was an actual phone number used for both types of calls. I dialed them and both were Verizon numbers not active at this time. I informed Verizon about both and Microsoft about the one.
Never heard back.
VOR
@Uncle Cholmondeley: Hmm, first story which actually named the gang whose sign this supposedly was. I was starting to wonder whether there was an actual gang sign which even looked remotely close to pointing a finger with your thumb up. Conservatives I know were falling back to claiming that the gesture was something which wouldn’t be allowed in public schools, rather than a gang sign. Good for the Strib in refusing to run the original Pointergate story.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Uncle Cholmondeley: I wouldn’t say that the Strib has ignored this nontroversy. They’ve piled on in mocking the accusations.
NotMax
@japa21
Yeah, that’s been going on for some time, almost always with someone with a heavy Indian accent at the other end.
Used to string them along for sh*ts and grins (“Does your mother know you’re a liar and a thief?”) until it got to the point that was receiving 3 or 4 calls per day, then it became an instant hang up.
Still laughing at “US Department of Grants.” Haven’t been called by those bozos yet.
Villago Delenda Est
@japa21: T
I got one of these once, and I just mocked the caller incessantly for about 10 seconds until he hung up. The accent was definitely not North American, which could be the first clue, or not, given the IT sector’s penchant for overseas call centers…but the whole thing was just so ludicrous if you know a few things about computing…which is pretty much not those who they’re trying to target, they just had a bad day and got me.
NotMax
(Corrected for blockquote fail. %:45 a.m. here; sue me.)
@japa21
Yeah, that’s been going on for some time, almost always with someone with a heavy Indian accent at the other end.
Used to string them along for sh*ts and grins (“Does your mother know you’re a liar and a thief?”) until it got to the point that was receiving 3 or 4 calls per day, then it became an instant hang up.
Still laughing at “US Department of Grants.” Haven’t been called by those bozos yet.
Just Some Fuckhead
When did flashing gang signs fall out of favor? I order my lunch every day using nothing but gang signs and eye rolls.
the Conster
That was quite an open letter that the mayor wrote – all that respect shown for “those people” in MPLS is like waving a red flag at a
bullmouthbreathing fucktard. I hope she watches her back.Just Some Fuckhead
Here’s a picture of the Pope flashing the gang sign that led to the street execution of Cardinal Burke.
NotMax
@Just Some Fuckhead
That might explain the liver and cole slaw sandwiches.
:)
japa21
@NotMax: The saddest part is that many people must fall for these scams ot they wouldn’t be happening. That says something about the intelligence of or the education of our populace. Or, in the case of the grants, the basic greed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Some Fuckhead: Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed that Francis didn’t order Burke’s immediate drowning in the Tiber, instead opting to contract it out to Murderazone and Pizza Delivery, Inc.
Just Some Fuckhead
Here’s Obama signalling for a re-up in the White House.
Villago Delenda Est
@japa21: This is like spam or mail marketing; if they get a 2 % response rate, they’re golden.
p.a.
@Cacti: Yes. Exactly this. I’ll relax the rules and require unions to self-police when management does the same for their own bad apples. In fact the (nonpublic) unions I’m acquainted with or joined did quietly self-police, mainly by providing proforma defenses of bad actors. As a steward told me (paraphrase) “We can’t use up our resources constantly defending jerks and then have nothing left for someone being harassed or who may have screwed up once.” Resources in this case meaning both the money required for arbitration cases and the logrolling used in grievance meetings.
shelley
Oh yeah, I’ve gotten that one a number of times.
***************
Re: the OP’s topic. Okay, Mr. Delmonico. You don’t have to apologize; just admit you were dead wrong.
Just Some Fuckhead
Here’s Joe Biden describing how he put a cap in Biggie Smalls.
Roger Moore
@Gian:
The thing that gets me is all the hate directed against LADWP workers. There’s a huge, concerted campaign against them that seems to be based primarily on jealousy about how much they’re earning. What I’ve never heard or seen- and don’t expect to hear or see- is a comparison between LADWP workers and workers in comparable private utilities, like Edison. I assume this is because those comparisons would blow up the whole argument. Utility linemen earn their wages; they’re doing work that requires many years of training, is very dangerous, has a major direct impact on customers, and is often carried out under frightful conditions. All those things argue in favor of high pay.
bemused
I’m glad it’s been pointed out here that MPD Chief Janee Harteau was also on the same canvassing event which hasn’t been that widely reported outside MN.
KSTP reporter Kolls appeared on ESPN 1500 (owned by Stanley Hubbard) Garage Logic radio show with Joe Soucheray. Joe Soucheray, definitely no liberal, grilled Kolls. Kolls admitted he had not seen the video of the canvassing event that the pointing photo was clipped from when his report aired. Kolls said, “I just put it out there because they (the Mpls police union) came to me and said, ‘this is preposterous’.” Why let research get in the way of a smear story.
Bob Collins of MPR Newscut said every journalist he discussed pointergate with said it was “shocking and frightening”, the lack of context and how the story worked it’s way through KSTP’s editing process without anyone saying wait a minute.
I’ve watched clips of John Delmonico and he comes across as kind of thuggish. No surprise from closed rank groups such as police depts and police unions who can be virulently hostile to any criticism or pushback. I could be wrong but I would not be surprised if Delmonico had a misogynist streak too. He kind of set off my female radar.
Roger Moore
@p.a.:
I suspect they also have a limited number of fucks, and they aren’t going to give one to a known bad actor.
bumper
@VOR: It’s the infamous Wiggles gang sign. Totally inappropriate for kids.
/snark
negative 1
@Roger Moore: When IBEW was created, the on the job mortality rate for electricians was 50%. That’s not a typo.
MomSense
@indycat32:
My understanding is that it varies by state. In some states, public employees do contribute to SS and receive SS benefits. In other states public employees contribute to the state retirement system and do not receive SS benefits.
Roger Moore
@negative 1:
Even today, utility lineworkers have one of the top 10 on the job fatality rates. It’s by far the most dangerous kind of electrical work because it’s done outdoors, often in terrible weather, almost always with live circuits, and at much higher and more dangerous voltages. Again, if you want me to believe that LADWP workers are overpaid, just show me how much more they’re making than people doing the same job for SCE or any similar utility. Until somebody does that, I’m not buying what they’re selling.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
You have multiple firing synapses.
They target audience does not.
maya
@Gian:
Things sure have changed in LA since the days of Lohman & Barkley and Hudson & Landry.
Tone In DC
I have pretty much had it with these cops, after what we’ve seen for the last few years. Missouri, Florida, DC, New York, Minnesota and so many other places. I am so sick of this behavior.
And, yeah, accusing the mayor of flashing gang signs does reek of desperation. But, hey… why have an actual discussion/argument/debate when you can just Make Shit Up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC:
Seems to be a profitable strategy for the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Jones, Larson, and others.
Tone In DC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Can’t argue with that. Their audience, as you mentioned, has a less than optimal amount of firing synapses.
Apropos of nothing, there is this:
http://wonkette.com/566516/bill-kristol-finally-admits-hes-stupid
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
On the other hand maybe all of us who work could earn at least a living wage and then the people getting that extra money for doing that dangerous work wouldn’t have to listen to all the crap about how they are screwing everyone by getting paid a reasonable amount for said work.
IOW I like how it’s rarely, how do we earn a reasonable wage(or have reasonable insurance, or…..), it’s how do we keep someone else from doing so.
Are conservatives just all pessimists, always thinking that life sucks but not evenly?
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it’s more a question of motivation than of intelligence. The goal of this kind of crap is to incite jealousy, and some otherwise intelligent people fall for the bait very easily. It gets back to a basic question of what kind of person you are. Do you want to bring yourself up to a higher level, or do you want to bring the people who are higher up down to your level? Of course the people being targeted to be torn down in this case aren’t that high up in the first place, but that’s classic 1% class warfare. They pit the people at the bottom against the people in the middle so they’re both too distracted to see how high above them the people at the top really are.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC: Well, he IS flashing a gang sign in that photograph, so your post is on topic!
VidaLoca
The police union here in Milwaukee does things like this all the time, in fact they’re masters at it. And I’m fine with that — in fact I think we have a lot to learn from them.
Just imagine: instead of following the standard old-school practice of bargaining the contract and servicing the grievances while they farm out their political interests to one or the other of the political parties (kind of like liberals do) they are aware that by the nature of their jobs as public employees they operate in a political space — so they act politically in their own interests. And instead of waiting until elections come along every couple of years, they’re at it all the time. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose; when they lose they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get right back at it again.
This is a good model. Teachers, say, should follow this model (and from what I hear about Chicago, they are staring to follow it there). Agreed, the actual positions the cops take are reactionary as hell but the more politicized unions can be, the better.
Well the working class has a big problem with income inequality, it’s true. But it has an even bigger problem with a lack of any kind of power in a political system that’s organized against it. Who are you going to turn to to address that problem — the Democrats?
Tenar Darell
Can anyone confirm that this was the same department as the one that tased the African American father waiting for his children? or is the St. Paul department under separate management?
Olivia
@japa21:
We got that very same”grant call” this morning. The fake IRS call came a few months ago. A man with a very thick accent told me he was sending the police to my house because I didn’t return a call he left on my voicemail demanding money for back taxes. I just said “bullshit” and hung up. No police yet.
VOR
@Tenar Darell: St. Paul Police Department is completely unrelated to Minneapolis Police Department. Different city, different county, totally separate management.
Villago Delenda Est
@Olivia: The police in Bangalore are having problems getting to your house, but don’t worry, eventually they’ll find you.
Assuming, of course, you’re in Mumbai.
Tone In DC
@Tenar Darell:
I forgot about that incident. The harassment on that video reminded me (just a bit) of the Occupy incident in Oakland.
I suppose I should be glad that all the St. Paul cops did was stun him. No choke hold, no shots fired.
Linnaeus
To add to what others have said on this, unions (and, by extension, the officers charged with executing the terms of a CBA) have a duty of fair representation to everyone (members and non-members alike) in the bargaining units they represent. They can get in big trouble, i.e., sued, for failing to do so. Don’t think that anti-union groups don’t look for instances where they can try to sue a union for not providing representation – trust me, they do.
Unions, like any other institution created by human beings, are imperfect instruments that reflect the flaws of those who create them, belong to them, and run them. So, you will get cases like Delmonico, who clearly stepped outside the scope of his duties as a union officer and deserves to be called out for it. In the end, though, unions remain a vital institution for employees to have some power in the workplace. There’s a reason the owner class would like to be rid of them.
And while unions should not be spared scrutiny, it’s frustrating to me that their flaws are used as reasons (even by otherwise “progressive” people) to say that the concept of trade unionism is bad. Flawed businesses and business practices, however, are just bad examples of capitalism.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I think it’s basically a question of zero-sum thinking. They think there’s only a limited amount of everything- money, success, freedom, health care, etc.- to go around. If somebody else is getting more, they must be getting less, and the only way they can get more is to take it from somebody else. It’s a very easy mode of thinking to get into, and a really destructive one, especially when applied to something like, say, religious liberty.
Tenar Darell
@VOR: Thanks. I was trying to figure out what/how to query that, then just decided to ask. Knew there would be someone who would know here.
Gex
The angle that is most painful to me about this episode is how often the movements of a black man’s hands are used by cops to justify shooting a black man. And here we have ample evidence that there are cops out there who *want* to see threatening hand movements where they clearly are not. And I would guess that those kinds of cops are over represented in the cops who shoot black men. Hodges and the police chief are definitely being targeted here, but ultimately, I keep thinking about what it means to have men like that retired cop and this union head granted police powers.
RaflW
@VOR:
In my view, this just says that KSTP will accept any ol’ bullshit the police union feeds them, with plenty of credulousness and no ability to see they are being played as pawns. Yes they have ‘cover,’ but they are not being journalists.
PIGL
@Chris: Exactly: police unions are a barely-legitimated right wing paramilitary freikorps who exert undue and pernicious influence on city politics.
icedfire
@Roger Moore:
For some reason, this struck me as an unusually precise yet concise explanation of something that I’ve heard and thought of before, but somehow managed to forget.
catclub
@big ole hound:
Interesting that the Teamsters Central States Pension lost far less money during the 2008-9 crash than others. They kind of acted as fiduciaries for their members.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW: It’s not about journalism.
It’s about ratings.
Always.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Further evidence that they’ve never read The Wealth of Nations.
Or bothered to pay attention to reality.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s often about spreading propaganda that suits the owners political interests rather than ratings. They still care about viewership, but only because it measures the reach of the propaganda.
Another Holocene Human
I know a few labor people–lawyers, activists–who refuse to lift a finger for police unions.
OTOH the FOP in Orlando showed solidarity with the rest of the labor movement on the dues deduction issue a few years ago. So some people I know have swallowed their words on that, too.
SWMBO
@NotMax: They had called my mom (in her 70s) telling her that there was a virus on her computer and for $70 they would scrub her computer and eliminate the virus. They were calling multiple times until she finally asked them, “How did you get access to my computer? Did you put the virus on there yourself? Give me your number so I can ask the Attorney General if you can access my computer to put a virus on without my permission to get me to pay you to take it off.” click zzzzzzzzzzz They never called again.
Another Holocene Human
The police chief vs police union reminds me of Gainesville/Alachua County where the sheriff was a groundbreaker unmarried woman, very tiny woman actually, who worked her way up the ranks and is and was hated by the union at both City and County. OTOH she engaged in some union busting herself (at the jail), which is literally the only thing I’ve ever seen that I didn’t like about her tenure as Sheriff. (Otherwise she’s done an amazeballs job especially compared to the way stuff was before her tenure.)
One problem with unions is that because they’re kind of like defense lawyers as far as disciplinary issues go they are exactly the wrong institution to look for for help with sexual harassment, racial harassment, etc issue. When unions were becoming more Black in the 1970s there was a lot of strife (see the wildcat CTA strike in Chicago which had more to do with internal politics at the union than with the employer per se … what happened, hm, much like the last election, RETIRED white drivers had a stranglehold on union leadership, the disrespect for the black drivers was palpable and their concerns weren’t being heard, union meetings turned into a battleground (shouting, shoving, people ejected, authoritarian pronouncements from the executive board), and finally a large group of disaffected Black drivers just walked off the job. Ultimately ATU banned retirees from voting in local officer elections).
If somebody could tell me how the union could help with these issues I’d love to hear it. Stuck between oaths to never rat on a union member (I’ve told them I am going to protect you as much as I am able but I am NOT going to lie for you) the duty of fair representation and the grievance/arbitration process which puts a burden of proof on the employer which means they’d better have their ducks in a row to discipline somebody on harassment policy violations, and then the bad actor that is management that won’t rein in the sexual harassment and bias going on with the managers. All I can do to that is file grievances until they hesitate before disciplining anybody. Problem is the whole fucking system is biased, when an elderly white male arbitrator thinks my middle aged black male grievant isn’t credible, but I know this guy, I work with him every day and I want to tear my hair out, WTFBBQ!!
C.V. Danes
Having worked with state government as a consultant for several years I will say this about working with unionized staff, based on my experience:
If you are the kind of person who just wants to sit in your cube and work your 37.5 hours per week, then the state will never fire you as long as you minimally do your job. It will take a lot for the state to fire you even if you don’t minimally do your job. You certainly won’t work your way very high up the ranks, and you may find yourself moved around a lot, but you will always have a job. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s just the way it is.
In the private sector, you can work 70 hours a week and there is no guarantee that you will not come in one day and find a box and one of your coworkers to politely help you clean your desk out and escort you off the premises.
That’s the practical difference between being unionized and not being unionized, and that’s probably one of the biggest culture shocks that someone used to working in the private sector has to deal with when working with unionized staff. There are many, many highly competent, unionized state staff that go the extra mile in their jobs, but there is also a not-insignificant percentage who are just clocking their 37.5, too, knowing there’s nothing you can do to them. Those people can be very challenging to work with, and undoubtedly a source to some of the bad reputation that state workers have out in the private sector.
Another Holocene Human
@Linnaeus: The thing with police unions is that the cost to society of not having police unions is worse.
NYPD was founded with a bunch of Irish bully boys paid well below anything resembling prevailing wage at the time and no right to a union (or strike, etc). So they found ways to get paid….
And once that shit started, it’s very hard to bring an end to it.
C.V. Danes
@Another Holocene Human: True dat. In one of the first episodes of Gotham, one of kingpins made a comment to the fact that organized crime requires an ordered society within which to operate. I thought that was very profound.
Another Holocene Human
@VidaLoca: They only get away with that shit because there is a good group of the public who are reactionary slugs cheering them on … oh, I dunno, maybe 27%.
Should other public sector unions get visible? Well, duh. But abusing the public verbally at every turn would be a big loser for anybody but the cops.
Cops see this as a workplace issue. They’re very paranoid and think every member of the public is trying to kill them so they fantasize about having the guns, the armor, the dogs, the JUMP on the bad guys which is why they do all these pre-emptive shootings all the time.
It’s all way down the rabbit-hole stuff but the cops want their leaders to confirm their fears, repeat their memes in public, all the hateful hurtful paranoid nonsense that is their daily gospel.
Americans are more armed and more violent than, say, Brits but the rise of the SWAT happened during a long, steady secular decline in violent crime. The paranoia doesn’t track the occupational risk.
They fit right in with the FOX crowd.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I think we are saying the same thing, just that your explanation is better than my snarky one. I have said for a long time the same thing as you, that conservatives look at their relationship with the world as a zero sum equation. It isn’t of course but as they make this decision not based on facts, logic or any kind of scientific thought, none of our facts, logic or any kind of scientific thought will sway their beliefs. They are beliefs, nothing more. They can not be swayed by reality, they weren’t swayed by it to get to their positions, they aren’t going to believe reality and accept any other positions.
EthylEster
@Yatsuno: Hi. I live in seattle and have gotten about a half dozen of these robo calls over the last 4 months IIRC. The first of the message is cutoff by my machine so i can never hear the entire thing but the IRS is mentioned and some dire language about “this is your last chance to do something by calling…”. It was pretty easy for me to identify this as a scam.
Another Holocene Human
@C.V. Danes: I honestly think it’s the culture of public sector period. I know about some non-unionized technical/professional state employees who got more or less rubber roomed. Not fired … given a thumb-twiddling assignment to get them out of management’s hair.
OTOH, frontline, unionized employees are subject to disciplinary action and firing (often the scapegoat for whatever ball of stupidity, cost-cutting, ostriching is going on many levels above them), and they also get laid off when times get tough. And I’ve seen PLENTY of dead wood (and thieves) in private sector jobs. You just need to work for a big enough business. Small businesses are under pressure to fire the crap employees or go under.
Public sector is super conservative and risk adverse because of public scrutiny/different standards and because people choose the jobs because of the bennies and not the pay. One huge culture shock was how long it takes to change anything no matter the merits.
Shorter: there are other factors at play in private vs public than the union and that is why you’ll see a lot of the same things in totally not unionized public sector jobs.
EthylEster
I used to live and work in the Twin Citites back in the 80s. The police chief (whose first name was Anthony but I can’t remember his last name) had a wife who was always getting arrested at the protest du jour.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore:
They’re not targeting people at the bottom, who don’t vote much anyway and dream of having jobs like “prison guard” and public-employed (not-contracted) maintenance/janitor.
They’re targeting petty-bourgeois who think of themselves because of their profession or pretensions as being better than blue collar workers like cops and can’t STAAAAAAND to see a blue collar worker doing as well or better than them financially. Somehow teachers have been painted as blue collar as well, which it kind of is not. Denigrating the educational background necessary for teaching is part of that, constantly painting professional teachers as ignorant so of course these wet behind the ears Ivy league kids can “save” the school.
I got into an argument once with an ex-cop who was indignant about teacher pay (“why do they get paid all year when they work 9 months–because they bargained for that, dumbass–well they’re not worth that much–oh yeah, with a master’s degree, where’s your MS?–they’re lazy and entitled and only work 9 months!!”).
Who votes raw-Caucasoid-skin-red like clockwork? Exurbs. Self-segregated, too much debt, social striver communities full of people who think of themselves as better than, smarter than, and more deserving than others. They are struggling to stay ahead of their bills and bitterly resent anyone “below” them getting close to them or overtaking them. They HATE pensions because their retirement savings are all over the place and they’re underwater on the house and feel financially insecure.
They are fundamentally terrible people and definitely should be expedited to the front of the list to settle Mars.
Another Holocene Human
Also the culture and the tax code all blowing smoke about how awesome small business owners are. Many of them are shit at business and furious that people who chose “safer” jobs that they thought they were better than are financially stable and they’re not so they want to take all that stability away to punish them because their business is failing and they weren’t the awesome superman whose shit smells like rainbow sparkle farts and whose fingertips turn retail franchises into gold or what-have-you.
You can pretend to be successful for a while with family and house loans to fund your business and lifestyle … yup … some people turn it into a lifestyle of looking for the next sucker to drain …
Another Holocene Human
Here’s some truth: being a small business owner in the US really sucks, despite the tax breaks. (Having a fake business is much more lucrative than running a real one.)
So lots of smart people stay the hell away. So who is drawn in by the Fast Company/Young Money/Forbes, etc hype?
People with a raging case of Dunning-Kruger, or raw emotional needs to be told they’re good enough and smart enough and gosh darn people like them and money is attracted to them cuz you’re fly like a bee, or both. People who are very, very stupid (to quote John Cleese) with a desperate need to be told all the time that they’re better than the average bear.
So along with your hard-working immigrant who is breaking his/her back so the children can go to college, and the genuinely really smart professional or technical person hanging up a shingle or launching a startup, you’ve got these people essentially suckered by their personality disorders into delusional business schemes that sometimes work for a while because the market is good but usually just run on debt until the whole thing blows up. This is your core of rage-bots that hate every fucking public sector employee. HATE HATE HATE. Successful business owners know that public sector employees making good wages means more stable customers for them. But we’re not talking about successful businesses here. We’re talking about wannabe social climbers in debt up to and beyond their eyeballs.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti:
Agreed. And it’s not “unions”, he chose to be a douchebag.
Another Holocene Human
@negative 1:
Typical.
The reason FL resisted Rick Scott’s crap last time is that police and fire mostly backed the rest of labor. I’m not sure why the script played out differently here than elsewhere. Prior to that moment they had been playing all the same games you describe. (They did screw us on one item on the pensions and they had a Dem–Jeremy Ring who despite what anyone says is a GIANT ASSHAT–helping them. They were trying to protect their public reputation but screwing workers in other fields where the same factors didn’t apply.)
icedfire
@Another Holocene Human: I think I love you. Righteous — rant on!
dance around in your bones
@Gian: Let me guess – it’s John and Ken.
I used to like to listen to them but they went insane for whatever reason.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Linnaeus: Until so-called progressives and the Democratic Party get on board (and I mean totally, backing to the hilt, ON BOARD) with labor and labor rights, they will continue to lose, or win by margins so slender that they are forced to legislate as Republican-lite.
Figure it the fuck out, people.
C.V. Danes
@Another Holocene Human:
Ain’t that the god’s truth.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human:
For example, megasleeze asshat Bill Sizemore.
The man is a good example this…failed businessman who blames everyone but himself for his Dunning-Kruger.
J R in WV
@D58826:
This is partly true, some public employees do not participate in Social security.
But I worked the vast majority of my career for state government, and every paycheck had a major deduction for Social Security, and I will (when I apply) receive full Social Security benefits just like private sector workers
So, really, NO most public sector employees do not depend upon just their public sector pension. You can tell just by looking at your paycheck stub which class you fall into.
negative 1
@Another Holocene Human: 100 times this. Or more. Again in my state, the embattled and much-hated Commissioner of the Department of Education was supported by the Chamber of Commerce. That makes less than no fucking sense. Their argument is “I run a McDonald’s franchise, therefore I’m an expert on education policy”. Mind you when I worked in public accounting and had to balance these folks books it was the IRS fault they couldn’t remember their Quickbooks password and handed over a box of receipts and said “make it so I don’t owe something”.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
Sorry to keep hammering away on this point, sorry to nitpick with a fantastic rant, and I hate myself for defending these people, but –
It isn’t just their personality disorders that sucker these people. It’s the American Dream, or at least what it’s come to mean since Reagan. Our entire national mindset is geared towards telling people NOT to look for safety nets, whether it’s accepting welfare or being unionized or a public sector employee, because only losers and leeches do that. Instead, we scream at people that starting their own business is the solution to all their problems. So naturally enough, plenty of suckers do. And of course they get fucked, because it’s all a charade.
At my most charitable moments, I look at these people as drug addicts surrounded by pushers. Yes, they shouldn’t have smoked the crack, but if their parents and all their siblings are doing it, well, they ain’t gonna know better.
And I’ve seen this same mentality in colleagues at temporary, minimum wage jobs I’ve worked at. People who’re hoping to escape all that and strike it big with the Start Your Own Business chimera, but don’t have a clue what they’re doing, only that it’s What You’re Supposed To Do and they’re gonna do it until they hit gold. (“Oh, I have a small business I just started up.” “What do you sell?” “Second hand refrigerators.” “You sell a lot of these?” “I’ve sold two.” “This month?” “This year.”) … I’ve been known to rant and rage at conservative tinted delusions, but I for once I don’t feel like ranting there. I just feel like crying.
VOR
@EthylEster: Anthony Bouza. He was Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department from 1980-89. There were a lot of protests of Honeywell in the 1980s because they manufactured military ammunition, including cluster bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Bouza
Badtux
Minneapolis has gangsters? What, exactly, do they do? Terrorize little old grannies by helping them walk across streets?
Regarding public sector vs private sector, pensions, and Social Security, when I was a government employee in both Louisiana and Texas I paid $0 into Social Security. As a result when I look at my Social Security earnings record at the Social Security site I see a giant $0 goose-egg for those years. When I left government employment for the private sector they returned my pension contributions to me — *no* interest paid on them, none — and I had to roll them over to a 401(k), where the Wall Street banksters promptly stole half of them in the 2001 stock market crash. Which basically means I have to work until I’m age 67 to have enough years of service and enough years of good income to get a decent Social Security retirement. SIGH.
Note that paying Medicare taxes is *NOT* the same as paying into Social Security. Everybody pays Medicare taxes because everybody receives Medicare at age 65. Check your Social Security earnings record at the Social Security site for the years you were a government worker to see whether you were paying into Social Security proper as a government worker. Mine says $0. Yours may or may not, depending upon whether your city or state opted out of the Social Security system way back when.
Federal employees of course have no pensions and instead pay into Social Security. That was how Ronald Reagan insured that Federal regulators would be corrupt in the future, by making it possible for them to set up corrupt deals for private businesses then quit and go to work for a huge salary for the same private businesses they’d previously regulated. Before Reagan destroyed the federal pension system, corruption didn’t pay because you’d have to give up your Federal pension to quit and go to work for the business you regulated and if corruption were discovered and you were fired, you’d lose your pension. Today, not so, since Federal employees no longer have pensions.