Resources

Pamphlets

This is the pamphlet we distributed at the 2022 AFSCME International Convention! Feel free to use or create your own based on it. Quick tip: in order to get it to print right, you might need to rotate the second page 180 degrees.

Stats

According to AFSCME, over 100,000 (or about 7.7%) of its active membership work in “public safety”. Another 85,000 (or about 6.5%) work in corrections. Thousands more work in Parole and Probations. Adding that together, we see that up to 15% or more of AFSCME’s membership work in “carceral” professions—that is, professions which only exist to preserve to the prison industrial complex.

Here is a rundown from In These Times examining the many ways that collective bargaining stymies attempts at police reform.

Here is an academic article from the Duke Law Journal empirically demonstrating that union contracts obstruct police accountability.

And here is another study which strongly suggests that cops are more violent once they become unionized. In the case of a Florida state sheriffs, there was a 40 percent increase in violence (like assault and excessive force) after the 2003 Florida supreme court ruling allowed sheriffs departments in the state to unionize. City departments which were already unionized before the court ruling showed no increase in violence over the same period of time.