Boston Police Strike

Data from 2003 indicate that the average salary of a police officer in Boston is $83,000 per year. It's not enough and the police union is on strike to demand that officers be given a 17% raise over four years. Mayor Thomas Menino and his administration have offered 11.9%. The 1,400-member police union remains unsatisfied. It has established picket lines around the Fleet Center and has sent letters to the delegates to next week's Democratic National Convention asking them to honor the picket lines and not cross them.

Mayor Menino has announced that the picket lines are "informational" and not official strike lines.

"It's very shortsighted by anybody to take that letter they got from the patrolmen's association at face value," Menino said yesterday. "It was a self-serving letter."

Police union officials derided Menino's attempt to depict their planned protests as something less than an official picket line.

"This is a picket line - it's an economic picket line," said Jim Barry, the association's legislative agent. "What does Menino know about a picket line anyway? He's never walked one."

So, the mayor is trying to poo-poo the significance of the picket lines while the police union wants them to be honored. Whether John Kerry and the convention delegates will respect the picket lines next week is unknown.

My guess is that Kerry will cross the picket lines while voicing 110% support for the union.