however to insist that 'local and regional employees of departments dealing with road repair, snow removal, trash collection, and disaster relief' are prohibited from striking' is curious. While these are no doubt essential services they are not by any means on par with law enforcement. Not having your trash collected for one day is far less damaging to families than not having the schools open due to a teachers strike (which is not and should not be illegal) It also affects some of the poorest paid workers.
In response to your concerns, I would like to respond. The reason I put road repair, snow removal, and disaster relief on the list is due to the fact that a shut down of these services can really destroy a city, if the situation were right. If snow removal decided to strike during a blizzard, the ability of law enforcement, medical personnel, etc. to do their jobs would be non-existant. Having been in a police chase during the middle of a snow storm, the thought that that could last for a period of a strike is quite distressing. My cousin, a huge union member, talks with pride about a strike by the drawbridge operators in Chicago. They raised the bridges and then went on strike -- crippling the city and ensuring a surrender to their demands. As far as garbage collectors, read about the mounds of garbage left during the strikes in the 70s in NYC. Garbage in a summer can lead to disease.
As far salaries, just check this out:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/html/jobs/jobs.shtmlIn five years they make $10,000 more than I do in eight years as a prosecutor. That of course does not count for overtime, which in big cities leads to huge salaries for cops, garbage collectors, snow plow operators.
Actually, teachers are worse paid than all of the above examples in my experience. Although I would have added teachers, I just thought that I was asking for a lot already.
