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> I figure if California's prisons were 200% of capacity, there's no shortage of work for the prison guards anyway. I'm not sure how/why you figure that, or ho

> I figure if California's prisons were 200% of capacity, there's no shortage of work for the prison guards anyway. I'm not sure how/why you figure that, or how it's at all relevant. I'm not sure how/why you figure that because "over capacity" != "will build new prisons / hire new guards". I.e., it's not at all impossible for there to be prisons that are over-capacity and also a decline in the number of prison guard jobs. It's not relevant because the entire point of unions is to counter-act the effect of supply/demand dynamics on labor (see: "there's always another scab"). Just because there's "no shortage of work for the prison guards" doesn't mean they will lobby against changes to laws that might one day create such a shortage.

cf498 7y ago
Or they could just work towards better working conditions? Unions dont really have the growth incentive private entities do. Prison guards are extremely far from running out of work, quite the opposite is true and their members also suffer under the poor working conditions of an chronically understaffed and underpaid sector. They are risking their life because politicians think overcrowding prisons isnt a problem. I mean I get the initial point, some police unions are an especially vile proponents of an expansion into a police state, its just not really about working conditions. Its political lobbying. In Germany you can see it every time more competences for the police are discussed in parliament. You have some police unions giving legit feedback if someone bothers to ask them, how those competences are a bad idea and are not needed. And then you have speakers for other police union (with a catchy union name to seem more important) where you can see they have the right party membership and are looking for a career in politics. As a result you can see them in every news report that wants to bring across a certain message.

cf498 7y ago

Or they could just work towards better working conditions? Unions dont really have the growth incentive private entities do. Prison guards are extremely far from running out of work, quite the opposite is true and their members also suffer under the poor working conditions of an chronically understaffed and underpaid sector. They are risking their life because politicians think overcrowding prisons isnt a problem. I mean I get the initial point, some police unions are an especially vile proponents of an expansion into a police state, its just not really about working conditions. Its political lobbying. In Germany you can see it every time more competences for the police are discussed in parliament. You have some police unions giving legit feedback if someone bothers to ask them, how those competences are a bad idea and are not needed. And then you have speakers for other police union (with a catchy union name to seem more important) where you can see they have the right party membership and are looking for a career in politics. As a result you can see them in every news report that wants to bring across a certain message.