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Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

fox13memphis.com

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Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#51

Post by barry-cotter »

sudosysgen wrote: post #46
barry-cotter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contributions to unions aren’t capped and don’t need to come from members. If George Soros wants to leave his fortune to the AFL-CIO I doubt they’ll refuse.

Unions are directly elected institutions with general assemblies. That means you can't ever capture a union using money alone. Moreover, unions are legally prevented from contributing to political campaigns, while corporations are allowed to do so. Therefore, the comparison breaks down at every single level, and no useful conclusion can be reached from it.

Corporations, like unions are free to campaign independently. For example the for profit Fox, Breitbart, New York Times and Washington Post Corporations all made their political preferences very clear over the past two years. They each spent a lot of employee time and money supporting their favoured candidate. Or Disney, a for profit corporation, releasing Michael Moore films. They’re political propaganda, just like the garbage Citizens United produced to denounce Hillary.

Political speech rights in the US belong to individuals, who do not lose them by coming together in corporate organizations, whatever their form. This is just.

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#53

Post by burfog »

koverstreet wrote: post #23
burfog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That goes the other way too, if not more so: The union should stay out of such political matters; especially if they expect their continued funding to be above political reproach. That funding is a private tax, backed by force of law, imposed on the income of the workers. Via political "donation" a large part of it goes to politicians, ensuring that the politicians continue to allow it. This is deeply corrupt. We hav…

Unions are democratic organizations that exist to advocate on behalf of their members. Of course they should be involved in politics.

Suppose they were republican organizations. Would you feel the same? Picture this:

You take a job writing software for camera boxes on power poles. It happens to be direct employment with a police department, and it isn't management, so somehow you wind up forced to join the police union. Every election, they give millions of dollars to the republican candidates. They supported Bush. This year, they give Trump $42,000,000 to thank him for his support for the police. It's about $5000 per year of your paycheck that is going to this. Do you mind?

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#54

Post by sudosysgen »

barry-cotter wrote: post #51
sudosysgen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are directly elected institutions with general assemblies. That means you can't ever capture a union using money alone. Moreover, unions are legally prevented from contributing to political campaigns, while corporations are allowed to do so. Therefore, the comparison breaks down at every single level, and no useful conclusion can be reached from it.

Corporations, like unions are free to campaign independently. For example the for profit Fox, Breitbart, New York Times and Washington Post Corporations all made their political preferences very clear over the past two years. They each spent a lot of employee time and money supporting their favoured candidate. Or Disney, a for profit corporation, releasing Michael Moore films. They’re political propaganda, just like…

There is an absolutely massive difference between corporations and unions, in that corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to seek profit.

Unions don't.

This is why Unions should be allowed to campaign independently, but not corporations.

If all of the shareholders decide to contribute with their dividends, they are already allowed to, which gives them an advantage. That ought to be more than enough.

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ashtonkem wrote: post #6

The accusation that the police are surveilling union organizers is extremely troubling, and harkens back to the early 20th century when cops killed union organizers. The police should stay out of such political matters; especially if they expect their continued funding to be above political reproach.

[deleted]

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#56

Post by klyrs »

blinkengus wrote: post #39
ponker wrote: post #21

I’d bet 1:2 odds that this activist wasn’t the target and they’re just trying to get some low effort dope busts.

I'd bet 1:1 odds that even if it were, ITS STILL ILLEGAL TO POINT A SURVEILLANCE CAMERA AT A HOUSE WITHOUT A WARRANT.

Chill on the allcaps, and there's quite a lot of precedent that anything visible by the public is fair game. For example, evidence you throw into the trash becomes public property once you put it out on the curb

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#57

Post by geofft »

stefco_ wrote: post #16
ashtonkem wrote: post #6

The accusation that the police are surveilling union organizers is extremely troubling, and harkens back to the early 20th century when cops killed union organizers. The police should stay out of such political matters; especially if they expect their continued funding to be above political reproach.

Given how prevalent police unions are, and how incredibly quick they are to raise complaints, you'd hope for more self-awareness/solidarity and less hypocrisy.

If a police union demands too much, they don't threaten their employer with going out of business the way private sector unions do. The private sector union is naturally constrained to saying, "We want to help you build a reliable business for the long term; treat us fairly and we will do good work." Sometimes, of course, they do better at this than other times, but it is never in a union's interest to impair the business to the point where the jobs no longer exist. There is no such pressure on the police union. No demand for higher pay will cause their employer to shut down - it will at most go deeper into debt. No demand to put up with worse work (be it worse quality or simply more illegal) will cause the market to find a different supplier - there is no market. No overreach by the old guard will risk losing newer folks to an un-unionized competitor - there are no competitors. And so forth.

So I don't think this is even hypocrisy - effective police union leaders have very different approaches from effective private sector union leaders.

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#58

Post by smabie »

frabbit wrote: post #20
stefco_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how prevalent police unions are, and how incredibly quick they are to raise complaints, you'd hope for more self-awareness/solidarity and less hypocrisy.

[flagged]

Police have existed long before democracy (and socialism). Also I don't follow on how democracy implies socialism.

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#59

Post by throwanem »

IncRnd wrote: post #36
ashtonkem wrote: post #6

The accusation that the police are surveilling union organizers is extremely troubling, and harkens back to the early 20th century when cops killed union organizers. The police should stay out of such political matters; especially if they expect their continued funding to be above political reproach.

My understanding is that this was a SkyCop camera, which is what has been used in Memphis. Those cameras are requested by the neighborhood, and the neighborhood raises the money for the camera. Then, the MPD purchases the camera, installs it, then hooks it up to the RTCC feed. If this installation went according to that same format, this activist may know full well why the camera is there - assuming he attends neighb…

SkyCop cameras are anything but covert. They are meant to present an obvious police presence.

https://www.skycopinc.com/

https://www.google.com/search?q=skycop+camera&source=lnms&tb...

Re: Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home

#60

Post by smabie »

geofft wrote: post #57
stefco_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how prevalent police unions are, and how incredibly quick they are to raise complaints, you'd hope for more self-awareness/solidarity and less hypocrisy.

If a police union demands too much, they don't threaten their employer with going out of business the way private sector unions do. The private sector union is naturally constrained to saying, "We want to help you build a reliable business for the long term; treat us fairly and we will do good work." Sometimes, of course, they do better at this than other times, but it is never in a union's interest to impair the bus…

Aren't police unions similar to other government unions, like teachers unions then?
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