Public Sector Unions: Tip of a Vast Socialist Iceberg

An interesting, almost offhand observation in Kausfiles today got me thinking:

About 50% of California's legislative politics seems to involve Democratic officeholders trying to please public sector unions. That's the game here, much more than on the national level.

What's Kaus' evidence?

Telemundo anchor Mirthala Salinas' former boyfriend, California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, is trying to please the powerful state teachers' unions by passing a bill that would let local school boards kill charter schools after three years.** Telemundo anchor Mirthala Salinas' current boyfriend, formerly married L.A. Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa, has been a supporter of L.A.'s Greeh Dot charter schools, which the local school board has viewed as a threat. Since Villaraigosa seems to be on the right side of this one, I say we let Mirthala decide. ...

We're going to leave this here for now after a parting thought. I've been thinking about this public sector union stuff a lot, particularly here in the DC area. Probably since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, public sector employees in the Federal, state, and local sectors have increasingly been represented by trade unions like AFSCME and the corrupt NEA.

This is not necessarily wrong, but it has become pernicious, as the salaries and rich benefits of public sector employees are paid by taxpayers, not greedy corporate bastards. Taxpayers who often don't have equal benefits or wages themselves. Yet public sector unions seek the same kind of wage increases, the same kind of anti-competitive job protection and above all, exhibit the same contempt for management—in this case us—as do their union brothers and sisters in the private and/or industrial sector.

Worse, they have become accustomed to extorting support from the left-leaning Democrats who traditionally count on their votes. Thus, the bigger the bureaucracy, the more likely left-wing Democrats are to retain their hold on government to the detriment of the average taxpayer. To oppose anything the public sector unions support, however pernicious it might be, is to lose the next election. Which is always the last thing from a machine Democrat's mind. Think about it.