It therefore enjoyed an advantage in collective bargaining with such things as mandatory arbitration in disputes with management compared with other police organizations.

[2] The VPU is the collective bargaining agent for approximately 1300 members of the Vancouver Police Department and negotiates labour contracts.

Through its president and spokesperson, Tom Stamatakis, the union acts as a political lobby on behalf of its membership, and has taken a strong position on issues such as the Insite safe injection site in Vancouver, calling it an "unmitigated disaster" for the Downtown Eastside and claiming that all it has accomplished is the creation of a "sense of entitlement" for the neighbourhood's drug addicted population.

[3] The union also questioned the credibility of former mayor Sam Sullivan in his capacity as the then chair of the police board.

[4] Critics of the Vancouver Police have been publicly denounced by the union, particularly lawyers Phil Rankin, Cameron Ward, and John Richardson of the Pivot Legal Society.