May Day topic: Let's talk about police unions!

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KBOO is open to the public! To visit the station, contact your staff person or call 503-231-8032.


Produced by: 
KBOO
Air date: 
Wed, 04/29/2015 - 8:00am to 9:00am
KBOO listeners are invited to call in on this critical issue

Violent, too-often lethal and racist police behavior continues to be in the public spotlight with the recent outrage in Baltimore. Although public discussion of the role of police unions in protecting cops from both internal discipline and criminal prosecution has increased over the past year since the events in Ferguson, there is still relatively little movement among progressives and organized labor to seriously address this issue. 

On February 4, Wednesday Talk Radio Host Paul Roland organized a special two hour  "Forum on police unions and their role in the culture of police violence in the United States," (http://kboo.fm/aforumonpoliceu0)with the participation of national and local labor activists, lawyers, academics and police critics. He had hoped to spur a wider debate in the Portland progressive movement. Whether or not this has actually occurred is difficult to assess, but anyway, with this program he's trying once again to stimulate some debate. And you're invited!!

This May Day is also the 15th anniversary of the 2000 Portland May Day police riot. The historic role of the police as protectors of the Status Quo was all too evident there as in so many other occasions of public protest and dissent. Police Unions have always had a double role of guaranteeing workplace safety, adequate wages and benefits for their members but at the same time maintaining the political and social power and preventing civilian oversight of the police. Is this an unresolvable contradiction? Should police unions exist at all? Should they have strict limits placed on their ability to wield their unique position as armed enforcers of social order? 

Call in with your thoughts and perspectives at 503-231-8187.

Portland Police Association Labor Agreement:
http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bhr/article/10857?
Recent articles on police unions from around the country:

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/03/portland_police_oversight_thre.html
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/28/balltimore-freddie-gray-prosecute/
http://reason.com/blog/2015/04/27/baltimore-protests-riots-and-police-unio
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/28/the_police_are_the_problem_why_its_time_to_take_on_marylands_cop_unions/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/us/police-unions-facing-public-anger-rethink-how-to-address-shootings.html
http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertleger/2015/03/30/ducey-vetoes-police-secrecy-bill/70700920/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Police-Violence-Impunity-and-Reactionary-Police-Unions-20150405-0007.html

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