The State Worker: Some California prison officers resent CHP

SacBee: State Worker ^ | 2/18/10 | Jon Ortiz

[SmithL]

For years, the unions representing prison officers and California Highway Patrol officers have had a not-so-friendly rivalry.

It boils up whenever The Bee reports on one or the other. This column reignited the flame last week by revealing that the state could sue the California Correctional Peace Officers Association over a $4 million tab run up over nearly five years. The union owes the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department for wages and benefits paid to union staff on leave from their jobs.

Online commentator "lab87" aimed fire, not at CCPOA, but at the CHP officers' union: "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO REPORT ON ALL THE ABUSES GOING ON OVER AT CHP!!!"

Well, if the patrol officers' union or the state bookbinders' union or any other union is threatened with a $4 million lawsuit, The Bee will cover it, we swear.

(By the way, CCPOA paid $81,000 toward its bill the same day The State Worker reported the debt. A Corrections spokesman said the union still must pay $2 million by month's end.)

But lab87 represents a swath of folks, many of them correctional officers, who believe the California Association of Highway Patrolmen gets all the shrimp and leaves the radishes to the "prison guards."

[SmithL]

Looks likes trouble in this Workers' Paradise.

[RSmithOpt]

Union Gang turf wars??? Both sides carry guns and badges and wear brown shirts....outta make a great documentary.

[SJSAMPLE]

Are the prison guards really cops?
Everywhere else, they’re not even on par with cops.
Usually, the only difference between the guards and the inmates is which side of the bars they’re on.

[BubbaBasher]

Just more people that couldn’t make the grade bitching about those that did. I’m sure everyone of the guards would jump at the chance to be a member of the CHP.

[Mr Inviso]

“Are the prison guards really cops?
Everywhere else, they’re not even on par with cops.
Usually, the only difference between the guards and the inmates is which side of the bars they’re on.”

That is at the very heart of the disagreement here. The CCPOA wants their members to be fully accepted as if they were cops, hence the union name: California Correctional PEACE OFFICERS Association.

On the other side, the CHP has always regarded itself as a “cut above” every other police organization in existence. To which most regular police apply this: “CHP stands for Can’t Handle Policework” or “Triple-A with a Gun”. The CHP guys nearly all have the attitude that their personal excrement exudes no unpleasant odor whatsoever. Some other cops are the same way, but not to nearly the same degree.

CHP has always been paid rather well, and their retirement plan is incredible. Unfortunately, the state has expanded the same plan to include a lot of people who either don’t or should’t carry a gun on duty as “Public Safety” employees. That includes dairy inspectors, Medi-Cal and DMV cops, crime lab people, and so on. It should have been limited long ago to people who carry a gun or a hose in the daily line of duty.