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I'm wondering about public employee unions as well. I live in a city that has recently seen increasingly violent police repression of leftist activists in the last years, with mass arrests at public events etc. Then recently city employees including the police had this big protest where they of course were able to act in complete impunity (setting fires in front of city hall etc). It loving sucks to see the people who have been beating you up and arresting you by the thousands on bullshit charges for protesting against austerity immediately turn around and organize their own actions against cuts to their pensions etc and not see any contradiction in that... On the other hand the police union was only one of the groups present, firefighters were also present as well as many other public employees. Their grievances are legitimate and if they ought to be critized for anything it's for their reluctance to stand in solidarity with the rest of the working class. I understand that, in theory, public employees are supposed to serve the people and considering this having unions of their own could make little sense. However the reality is that the state in contemporary liberal democracies is fully within the control of a capitalist class pursuing neoliberal goals, not of the people, and that vital public employees such as teachers are seeing their pay and benefits unjustifiably destroyed as a consequence of that. I wish public employees could be said to be working for the public, but if we are honest with ourselves we must admit that this is pure idealism. In reality public employees are to a large extent employees of capital (which the state currently exists to serve). Part of me wishes that there was a way of reaching an alliance with the police. If the police union was to "strike", for example, and to stop enforcing political repression in service of their masters, the state would be under much more pressure to respond to both their demands and to those of the rest of us. I understand how unrealistic it is to even consider something like that, though.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:53
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 18:24 |
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