The disarming of unstable officers

The SA Police Service has been blocked by the SA Policing Union from disarming police officers that have been declared unfit to handle firearms, Times Live reports. The majority of these police officers have been deemed unfit due to psychological issues ranging from anger management, stress, bipolar disorder, depression, chronic post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, burn-out syndrome etc. A huge number of these officers are having their guns taken away due to suicidal tendencies and criminal intent. Now criminal intent includes firearms being used to commit serious crimes, threats to shoot their colleagues, attempted murder, robbery, intimidation and pointing of firearm.

So what are the unions really saying here by this interdict? That it's okay to protect their members regardless of the threat they might be posing to society? They are arguing here that sending these officers out without a firearm will be like sending them off to be murdered due to the fact that criminals in SA shoot to kill when confronted with the police. The Police Minister though is not proposing that these police be let loose on our streets. He is proposing that they be deployed to go and do work that will be appropriate for them in light of their psychological issues. Obviously as the public we don't want to have police who are ticking time bombs walking around our neighborhoods carrying firearms. This can lead to tragic consequences in our communities as we have witnessed in the past when we had a sudden increase in family murders and suicides committed by officers.

The unions in SA are making it hard for the managers to do their jobs. You see the same pattern happening in Education where the teacher's union would rather protect the rights of the teachers in lieu of the right to good quality basic education of the pupils. This tug of war with the unions is hampering service delivery and progress in our country. Of course the unions should be there to fight for the rights of marginalized workers. There are still some employers out there that exploit their workers and the unions are the only protection that these workers have. But it seems like in recent years our big unions (e.g. SADTU & SAPU) are loosing the plot. They seem to be fighting for the sake of fighting instead of making decisions guided by their founding principles and nation building. I really don't see how allowing unstable officers to continue carrying weapons translates towards nation building.

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