I realize that MLB and community policing are vastly different animals, but I thought there were a lot of parallels between the 1999 MLB Umpire labor action and the current NYPD "protests". For those who don't follow sports (and I rarely follow baseball anymore myself), back in 1999 there was an upcoming labor dispute between the union representing the Umpires -- The Major League Umpires Association (MLUA) -- and the collective league(s) of Major League Baseball (MLB). One of the biggest points of contention was the ever-shrinking strike zone, which MLB wanted to be called more closely to the way the rules were written but which MLUA members insisted was being called correctly.
In baseball, the strike zone had for many decades been known to be between the top of the knees and middle of the chest area of the batter, directly over home plate. Some time in the late 1980s to early 1990s the strike zone began shrinking until, by 1999, it was somewhere between the top of the knees and the bottom of the waist line of a batter. Not to mention that advancements in camera technology and placement showed a vastly wider strike zone being called than the area directly over the home plate. At the time, the MLUA insisted that the various camera angles showing a (literally) wide discrepancy between the location of home plate and where the ball crossed it was a result of parallax -- in other words, the cameras do not show the perspective of the Umpire officiating the game, so therefore they cannot be trusted to be accurate. The Umpires believed themselves to be the Ultimate Authority on how the rules would be enforced, and that their interpretation of the strike zone was the only way it could be interpreted simply because they said it was so.
MLB kept insisting that the strike zone needed to be called more closely in line with the way the rules were actually written, which led to a few public showdowns leading to the MLUA deciding to resign en masse in the hopes it would force a labor showdown and the individual members could disband the union, renegotiate a better deal and re-form themselves under a different Collective Bargaining Agreement which was more favorable to their positions. The MLB decided to accept their resignations, leading to the members of the MLUA to realize that they were shortly to be out of a job and many attempted to take back their resignations. In the end, MLB accepted the resignations of 22 Umpires out of 66, renegotiated a new CBA with a new union representing the non-resigned Umpires, and the strike zone was called according to the rulebook again -- "from the letters to the knees" as it was in the Golden Age of baseball.
Where this ties in to the NYPD is that here we have a group of individuals, led by a union which thinks that it alone has the unique perspective on what makes their enforcement of the law the Ultimate Authority on how the law should be enforced. We have a "front office" (Mayor de Blasio and whoever works for him on police relations) insisting that the law should be enforced according to the way it was written, and a group of individuals who are insisting that not doing their jobs is the most effective way to protest being told to do their jobs the way they are supposed to be doing them. If there is a history lesson to be learned here, it is that Mayor de Blasio should accept that the NYPD does not need all the officers it has on the payrolls and begin laying off extraneous staff. After all, the NYPD have proven over the last few days that there is literally no reason for them to be as active as they have been, and also that they are completely out of touch with their employer (the people of NYC) who have spoken up against their practices. Not to mention the courts throwing out the racist Stop & Frisk policies as being unconstitutional, proving again that the NYPD is not enforcing the law as it is written. I hope that Mayor de Blasio can settle this dispute without it coming to mass layoffs, but I think the longer the NYPD proves that they are unnecessarily causing strife and conflict with their methods, the more likely it will be that not doing their jobs will lead to not having their jobs at some point in the future.
By the way, at the same time as this labor dispute with MLB, the NFL had a similar dispute with its own referees over the way pass interference and holding were called against defenders. The NFL Referee's union at the time agreed that they would pay more attention to the way the NFL wanted the penalties to be called, and nobody lost their jobs due to standing up to the league front office. It just goes to show what can happen when labor and management can come to an agreement which benefits the fairness everyone expects from them, rather than digging in their heels and throwing a fit because they don't get their way.