union: all for one or sacrifice some members?

Ironically, it looks like the latter for the Metro Corrections and Police unions in Louisville.

In the face of Louisville's budget woes, these union members are not joining with others in city government who are reducing their salaries. Instead, it looks like they're willing to take a chance that their efforts will not lead to layoffs. Good luck with that.

If they're wrong, they will sacrifice some of their own members instead of sticking together.

In one sense, unions as a cartel makes sense here. In sticking together, they may impose more of the coming burden on non-union workers. Then again, this puts the lie to the idea that unions are "pro-labor". They're simply "pro-union", even to the point of being willing to harm other workers.

Here's the C-J article by Jessie Halladay...

Metro Corrections union members have joined Louisville's police officers in rejecting a proposal that would rescind their raises and require them to take three unpaid furlough days to help trim a city budget shortfall.

Mayor Jerry Abramson's plan would cut raises for six months starting Jan. 1 for union employees and require them to take three unpaid days.

If those cuts are made for all 6,000 city employees, including the 75 percent who belong to unions, it would save about $2.6 million toward the projected $20 million budget deficit....

Abramson can rescind the raise for nonunion employees. He announced last week that all nonunion employees will take three scheduled furlough days.

He said Tuesday that if the unions did not agree, the city might be forced to lay off 150 to 200 people....

Union members can be laid off, except for police and firefighters, whose contracts prohibit layoffs....

This last sentence implies a distinction between pro-fire/police-unions vs. pro-union vs. pro-labor.