It seems like everyone is piling on public service unions, even some people who might surprise you. One of the common criticisms is that the unions have too much clout with politicians. If that is the case, then why are a bunch of newly-elected politicians trying to destroy them, and why do they have legislatures willing to go along with their schemes?
Another theme is that public service employees don’t give a crap about the taxpayer (as though they were not taxpayers themselves) and that their benefits are too generous. I’ve been over part of this. Before the emergence of public unions, public employees were compensated significantly less than people in the private sector. The reason? Much of the private sector work force was unionized. What changed is not the public employees got a better deal, but that the private sector became deunionized, lost the right to bargain collectively, and saw their compensation and benefits stagnate or fall. But I have another question. Do taxpayers want public workers to get the smallest possible salaries? Do they want a government administered by paupers?
What’s really happened is that people who can’t bargain collectively have been screwed for so long that all of a sudden they looked around and realized someone else was getting a better deal. Now it’s time to make sure the teachers are screwed as bad as the rest of us.
It seems to me that people are taking the wrong lesson from all of this. But, what the hell, might as well fire them.
