The problem is the defense of police brutality, not the existence of police unions.

Everybody who works needs union protection. That's the only way you have any hope at all of getting decent working conditions and pay.

The problems with police include the "us against the world" attitude the police are encouraged to have by politicians and their superiors(and which they have with each other), the ways in which police work seems to eat away at the humanity of those who do it, and
the massive increase in gun culture in this country.

NOT the fact that they have(usually inadequate)union representation.

If police unions were abolished, pay would be slashed for cops, working conditions massively downgraded, pensions probably abolished-and the result would be that even crazier and less-self-controlled people would do the work.

Police unions need new leadership(they usually have corrupt and unaccountable leaders), they need to develop programs to keep cops in contact with the fact that most people, even in "bad neighborhoods" are basically decent, sane, and nonviolent folks who don't harm anybody, and they need the right to strike-giving them that would do a lot to diffuse police hatred of other unions and other working people, and probably diffuse their hatred of activists and the poor to at least some degree.

But it is never a progressive step, and can never lead to anything positive, to call for ANYONE to be stripped of union representation, even the police.

They also need a lot-less used military toys.