Why Public Sector Unions Are Not Typical Unions

Why Public Sector Unions Are Not Typical Unions « Union Watch
"Public sector unions, unlike private sector unions, present the following forms of procedural unfairness:

•Striking in the public sector exerts political rather than economic pressure on the government (who continues to collect taxes regardless), and is thus designed to harm the members of the public, particularly the poor, who depend on government services that unions are contracted to provide.

•The employer with whom public employee unions negotiate—the government—is not just another industry, and thus normal market constraints are often supplanted by political restraints and more flexible accounting practices that enable unfair and unrealistic concessions in favor of unions.

•Using their substantial political clout, public employee unions are able to influence elections and thus exert control over the representatives with whom they negotiate, resulting in less-than-arms’-length negotiations.

•Accordingly, public employee unions are able to negotiate deals that often violate state constitutional proscriptions against retroactive compensation and incurring liabilities without voter approval.

•Public employee unions represent one of the most powerful special interest groups by, in part, having successfully lobbied for laws requiring union dues be automatically collected from their members.

•Public employee unions lobby against laws, such as Right to Work, that prohibit coercive and anti-competitive practices.

•Public employee unions, unlike the general public, are permitted to press their interests upon elected officials in closed-door negotiations.

•All this substantial political influence wielded by public sector unions constitutes an improper delegation of the police power properly held in trust by elected officials for the protection of the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the public.