The Fraternal Order of Police is in revolt against civilian authority.

We in the labor movement should be loudly calling for vaccine mandates and condemn the FOP.

Subscriptions are free. Donations of $5 a month, $60 a year are appreciated. Paid subs come with the ability to join in the conversation and to receive periodic art work by me.

At a moment when the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police are in open revolt against civilian authority over vaccine mandates, it seems a good moment to take stock of the role of the broader labor movement in response to the plague.

I get that early on when vaccinations were given a provisional okay, there was some hesitation on the part of many to get vaccinated.

That time has passed.

That is no longer true. 

There has been a huge reduction of vaccine hesitancy in Chicago where the positivity rate is now down to less than 2%. 

Percentages of those vaccinated in Chicago among Black, Latinx and white residents are roughly the same, although pockets of unvaccinated still remain in neighborhoods where access continues to be difficult.

And labor unions can rightly take credit for taking the initiative in offering the vaccine to their members and in the neighborhoods.

But when Mayor Lightfoot issued a vaccine mandate for all city employees, the unions representing those employees and the Chicago Federation of Labor got upset and accused the mayor of sidestepping collective bargaining.

I don’t agree.

I don’t see that there is any question that in order to combat the plague vaccine mandates are required.

The courts have decided again and again that required vaccinations are not a mandatory issue of bargaining. That means they don’t have to be bargained.

Of course, how the mandate order is implemented should be negotiated. There are issues of where, how, release time and sick time. Issues like that have to be discussed and agreed upon between the employer and the union. 

But not only are vaccine mandates legal, our unions should be the most outspoken advocates of community health and safety AND mandated vaccinations.

Activists like me in the labor movement have always argued that our unions must be concerned with more than the salaries, benefits and working conditions of our own members. We argued that our unions fight for social justice and peace. We argued that we fight for government health care and anti-poverty programs. 

In this moment, in a time of the plague, that is what vaccination mandates are about.

Our unions should not make vaccination an adversarial issue with the city. It should be just the opposite. This is a moment when united action is demanded by the people of Chicago.

And then there is the FOP.

This is an entirely different issue. It is a case of the police and the FOP, the organization that represents them, acting in revolt against civilian authority.

I believe the courts will order them to desist.

Beyond that, I think it is reason enough for the FOP to be disbanded by the legislature.

And the rest of the labor movement should loudly condemn them.