ABSTRACT
Public employees have attempted to distinguish strike activity, quasi and conventional, on the grounds that they are exercising constitutionally protected rights. Strikes by public employees are made illegal by statute, court decision, and attorney general’s opinion. Public employees have “caught” red rash, blu flu, Russian diarrhea, and various other arcane maladies. Such job action is calculated to bring pressure by withholding all or a portion of labor service, similar to that of a strike, but contemplates circumvention of the law by use of tactics not strictly barred by legal mandate. Public employee strikes, quasi and conventional, raise certain constitutional issues that, it can be argued, prevent application of the strike ban. Courts have generally been unresponsive to claims that a ban on public employee strikes violates constitutional rights. Lack of an absolute right to strike makes what might otherwise be applicable First Amendment and due process protections mostly inoperative.
