POWER TO THE PUBLIC WORKER

How Jerry Wurf took over the leadership of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees from Arnold Zander, who had co-founded it as a strict company union. Wurf, an anti-Communist strong-arm in the restaurant locals, was hired by Zander in 1947 to lift the union out of rural-based conservatism. But in 1964 Zander was bounced for corruption and autocracy, and Wurf and his Young Turks swept in. A period of high membership growth and wide publicity followed, based on a series of strikes and eventual government acceptance of public employees' unions. In the early 1970's Wurf abandoned his advocacy of the right to strike, arguing instead for compulsory arbitration, which he says implausibly ""the bosses are scared to death of."" The book fails to mention his current stands on forced work for welfare recipients, police agency involvement within the union, and so forth. This PR-toned job may be intended for internal AFSCME consumption or AFL-CIO factioneering, or both.