[lbo-talk] Unionization

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> 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

In terms of analysis of "class consciousness" (consciousness that  
wage workers, by virtue of being wage workers, have common interests  
antagonistic to capitalists in a capitalist economy), we ought to set  
police officers and prison guards apart from other public-sector  
workers, but in terms of an ability to get organized to assert their  
immediate interests against management on the basis of trade,  
workplace, and/or industry (which unions are mostly about), police  
officers and other union members don't seem to act in very different  
ways, except that the police have it easier than teachers, transit  
workers, etc. in the same public sector, because capitalists depend  
on the police -- first responders in defense of private property, so  
to speak -- more fundamentally than on any other group of workers.

I'm basically saying here (against the "Bitch | Lab" claim) that an  
antagonistic relation to "customers" (which in the case of the police  
are the public they "serve and protect") is hardly an obstacle to  
unionization.  In fact, a union's ability to give workers the right  
and ability to fight against customer abuse and get compensated for  
it by management in the event of customer abuse is one of the selling  
points of unionization in any service work.  Take the transit workers  
in New York City, and see what's in their new tentative agreement  
that they won by striking, e.g.:

<blockquote>ASSAULT PAY

All employees in the titles of Bus Operator, Train Operator and  
Conductor shall be entitled to assault pay (“run pay”) for up to two  
years for injuries incurred on duty as a result of physical  
assaults.  The assault pay consist of a differential payment which  
shall be sufficient to comprise, together with any Workers’  
Compensation payable to him/her under the provision of the Workers’  
Compensation Law the amount, after taxes, equal to his/her after tax  
wages for his/her scheduled working time at the time of the accident.

<http://twulocal100.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC=%7B935B2C90-91BF-46F4- 
A7A0-26E576FF26B5%7D&DE=%7B69CC2208-796F-4CD2-98C4-F17C7739F90A%7D></ 
blockquote>

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>