Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> I'm sure cops, teachers, transit workers, etc. side with management
> against their clients more often than retail workers side with
> management against their customers (in fact, workers' right to fight
> against customer abuse is in their *union contracts*), but that
> doesn't stop cops, etc. from getting organized
I don't think you should include cops in this list -- for a number of reasons. One is that cop's unions are not unions at all. They are not even named unions but "associations," etc., and the difference in name is not merely formal. A police strike is quite simply unimaginable (except perhaps in a revolutionary situation).
For political reasons I would also exclude prison guards from the discussion, but at least they are formally unions. The last I knew, prison guards were the highest paid public employees in California -- but that is less due to their union strength, I suspect, than the political need to maintain their loyalty. Municipal and county police are not, on the whole, very well paid. (??) Someone ought to do a study of the material grounds of police loyalty.
Carrol