We discuss the question of police unions in the broader context of the diverging fortunes of public and private sector unions in the U.S., the wave of labor organizing among essential workers during the last few weeks, and whether unionization is reducing the risk to these workers, especially minority ones. 

Jake Rosenfeld is Professor of Sociology at Washington University-St Louis. His new book You’re Paid What You’re Worth And Other Myths of the Modern Economy will arrive early 2021. He is also the author of What Unions No Longer Do (2014).