The Plague of Government Unions

It was actually a minor line in an article by Robert Stacy McCain about Democrats not accepting election results that didn’t go their way, but one I found very important:

Government employee unions are a conspiracy against taxpayers, and when the people of Wisconsin elected (Scott) Walker to fight these unions, Democrats refused to accept the legislative consequences.

As it happens, I still have a Scott Walker t-shirt, from his failed campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Yeah, it’s pretty worn and threadbare, but it’s still good for work around the farm in hot, humid Kentucky summers.

Economically, unions in the private sector have to, in the end, be partners with the unionized businesses, because businesses can fail. If the unions demand so much that the business cannot make a profit, the business fails and the unionized employees’ wages drop to $0.00 per hour. And as much as some union leaders hate business, see themselves opposed to corporations, they do realize that a $0.00 per hour wage is possible if they drive the business out of business. Sometimes those private sector unions don’t get it right, as the bankruptcy and failure of Hostess brand demonstrates.

But public-sector unions are different, because the public sector cannot be driven out of business! Where private companies are trying to sell their products to customers who have the ability to choose to buy or not buy their goods, the public sector takes in its revenue through taxation, which is enforced by the law, and ultimately, by law enforcement. If public-sector unions demand so much that the government agencies cannot afford it under their current revenues, the government has the option of raising taxes, to increase its revenues at, in the end, the point of a gun.

Governor Walker tried fighting the public-sector unions, and succeeded, sort of, for a brief time. Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY) tried to get the Commonwealth’s rising retirement indebtedness under control, and the teachers’ unions went absolutely ape, and campaigned so vigorously against him that he lost his bid for re-election, in a very red state, to the odious — anyone who can simply suspend our constitutional rights and get away with it is by definition odious — Andy Beshear, 709,577 (49.20%) to 704,388 (48.83%), a margin if just 5,189 out of 1,442,390 ballots cast.

Public-sector unions have so much power because they are workers in an ‘industry’ that cannot fail, and they are bargaining for contracts with people who have little experience in business and no pressure to keep the ‘company’ in business. That’s why Virginia has become a ‘blue’ state, as wealthier federal government workers have metastasized into northern Virginia, and why public-school teachers are paid significantly more than the median income in the districts that support them.
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2 thoughts on “The Plague of Government Unions”

  1. Public sector unions should be illegal, because those employees have the most protective union in existence: the Civil Service. Get a job that has those protections and you can die in that job.
    One has to really screw up to lose their job, if covered under Civil Service. That’s one big reason those unions should be illegal. They were unionized before the union got a hold of them.

    Also, spot on about private sector unions being hand in hand with the company. My fifteen years driving choo-choo trains can attest to that.

  2. Executive Order 10988 is a United States presidential executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy on January 17, 1962 that granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining.
    This was done by an EO so no reason why it can’t be UNDONE by an EO!
    Government EE’s are SUPPOSED to be CIVIL and SERVANTS to the TAXPAYERS of the USA – not our MASTERS!
    I’ve advocated for PRESIDENT TRUMP to REVERSE that EO and give the Unions one year to wind up their business! This should be done on DAY ONE in 2025! Congress also needs to codify this as it presents a case of government control of the bargaining process by the people DOING the bargaining! And without US TAXPAYERS having a seat at the table!

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