Public Employee Unions

Organized labor lost 10% of its members in the private sector last year. But now more union members are government employees than in the private sector (51.3%). One commentator in the WSJ has suggested that the decline in industrial union membership, which in recent years has dropped with drops in the economy and not recovered when the economy recovered, will lessen their influence in elections. I think that is not true. Remember that the public employee unions are the ones that are there moving budgets at the state and federal levels every day. Talk about entitlements. Ever wonder why California's prison costs are several times the national average? Wonder no more the prison guard's union. Wonder why it is so hard to make meaningful changes in the schools? Ditto, except this time it is the teacher's association. The list goes on.

We need to treat public employees reasonably. But there is a lot of evidence that because of the inordinate influence of these groups in the political process we are doing that and more.