In Government, Every Day Is Labor Day
If there’s a day of the year to notice the paradox of organized labor, Labor Day is it.
Ira Stoll | September 1, 2014
here’s a day of the year to notice the paradox of organized labor, Labor Day is it.
The paradox is this: even as private sector unionism has declined, public sector unionism is in some ways more influential than ever.
The numbers tell the story. Among private sector employees — the ones who work for for-profit companies or non-profit organizations that are not part of the government — the percentage who belong to labor unions plummeted to a mere 7.5 percent last year, from 23.3 percent in 1977, according to UnionStats.com. By the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ more restrictive accounting, a mere 6.7 percent of private sector workers were in unions in 2013.
Among government workers, it’s a whole different story: 40.8 percent of local government workers — teachers, police, firefighters, librarians — belong to unions, according to the BLS numbers. The public sector rate drops to 35.3 percent (38.7 percent by the UnionStats.com numbers) if you include state and federal employees — postal workers, corrections officers. That’s so much higher than the private sector that it’s almost a tale of two labor movements — one, in the private sector, that is diminishing to irrelevance, and another, in the public sector, that retains substantial clout.
https://reason.com/archives/2014/09/01/in-government-every-day-is-labor-day
yea ok
I grew up in a middle class Bergen County Town.
I have created 6 companies over the past 30 years that to this day employ hundreds of Americans.
A childhood friend attended a two year college and then became a police officer in our home town after Spiking his salary for the last two of his 30 years he retired at age 52 with a $9800 monthly pension plus health benefits for life.
How is that fair or sustainable?
The government and public unions are out if control.
And the middle class suffers.
The government needs to stop spending our money and allow the private sector to create opportunity for all.