[brookst]

I’m actually with the parent — police are administrative, like judges and building inspectors.

I don’t have a fully formed opinion, but I think there is something wrong with unions for government functions. Unions are good because they allow a large number of weak stakeholders to band together to negotiate with a powerful business.

But governments aren’t businesses and don’t have the ruthless profit motive companies do, so I think government unions have too much bargaining power against the very diffuse stakeholders of a government. Police unions especially seem to exist more to avoid accountability than to further wages and working conditions.

I guess I would say that “labor” in the union context is in contrast to “shareholder”, and governments and their employees just don’t work that way.