As we all know, government workers get paid higher wages and receive much better benefits than their private counterparts. Why is this? Unlike a business which must turn a profit in order to survive, some governments can spend pretty much whatever they want. There are no market forces are at work in the public sector. For instance, the private sector in the United States has lost roughly 8 million jobs since the financial nee housing collapse. The public sector has grown by half a million.
Then enter the unions. A business that cuts a bad deal with a labor union will end up going bankrupt. While it would seem that a union would not want to cut a bad deal with the entity that supports it, some unions don’t seem to mind ramming a business into the ground that their members need in order to survive (UAW anyone?). However, with a state or local government there doesn’t seem to be any issue at all. Government is a bottomless pit of money (or at least a bottomless pit of peons who are forced to pay ever rising taxes), right?
Wrong. Governments are fundamentally different from private companies. Don’t take my word for it, though. Listen to FDR, the king of the welfare state and staunch supporter of the right to unionize. “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations.” “The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for … officials … to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives.”
