With regard to police officers, I would say that it's not just the police unions that circle the wagons and protect them. The courts have been extremely reluctant to charge or convict police officers with crimes for acts in the line of duty. Also, there's widespread support for the police in the general public, "blue lives matter", etc. I would suggest that police unions have only been allowed to wield they power they do because there's outside support in the general public for protecting police officers. Even the politicians who are anti-union tend to exempt police unions from their wrath, because those politicians tend to also be "law and order" types.
So politicians cave to large organized groups who can cause them problems and effect their ability to be elected?
How is that a surprise, of course politicians give public sector unions what they want -- they hold the cards, a huge voting block and cause problems. Most of the tradeoffs are passed down the line so the politician doesn't care either.
> So politicians cave to large organized groups who can cause them problems and effect their ability to be elected?
That's not what I said? I said the general public (who are unorganized) have a great deal of deference for police officers, and the power of police unions is merely a consequence of the public's deference to police.
> How is that a surprise, of course politicians give public sector unions what they want -- they hold the cards, a huge voting block and cause problems.
It's not a huge voting block. Union membership is much lower now than it was, say, 50 years ago. Moreover, politicians don't give public sector unions what they want. Here in Wisconsin, the state legislature stripped public employee unions of collective bargaining rights. There were massive protests at the state capitol about this, but in the end it didn't matter. Afterward there was recall campaign and election against the Governor, but the Governor won the recall election.
It feels to me like many people still have a 1960s conception of labor unions and their power, but empirically speaking, labor unions have been on the decline for decades, perhaps starting with the Reagan years. Now is not the Jimmy Hoffa era anymore.
