The Making and Unmaking of a Private Security Trade Union in Occupied East Jerusalem

This short essay tells the story of the establishment and development of a combative trade union among Israeli private security guards protecting Jewish-only settlement compounds in occupied East Jerusalem. Private security unions can play an important role in the work lives of security guards, but as is the case with police unions, they have been understudied by social scientists despite their significance in the management, accountability, and community relations dimensions of policing (Walker 2008). I use this example from Jerusalem to reflect on the factors that enable and constrain the unionization of private security guards, thereby contributing to our understanding of the labor of private security and the ideological fault lines found therein.