For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.
In its annual report on union membership, the bureau undercut the longstanding notion that union members are overwhelmingly blue-collar factory workers. It found that membership fell so fast in the private sector in 2009 that the 7.9 million unionized public-sector workers easily outnumbered those in the private sector, where labor’s ranks shrank to 7.4 million, from 8.2 million in 2008.
via Most Union Members Now Work for Government – NYTimes.com.
And these figures don’t count the fact that all those GM UAW members, etcetera, in effect work for the government.
For the ramifications, just look here in NJ, where the public unions like the NJEA (teachers) and the CWA (many state workers) are not only are recession-proof, they scored big gains in wages and benefits at the expense of the taxpayers who were being down-sized and laid off right and left. Both groups paid huge amounts to support the sagging campaign of now ex-Governor Corzine, who refused them nothing. Instead they stirred up enough opposition from the largely voiceless middle class to put a reformist GOP candidate in office. May this trend continue nationwide.
I’m learning a lot of things this week. I book marked a WSJ editorial that laid this situation right at the feet of JFK:
“JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy’s order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities. This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions …”
Read the whole thing: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575015010515688120.html
In high school, I had a good friend whose dad was a postman. They lived in modest lower middle class circumstances. In fact, I met my friend when his parents could no longer afford to send him to parochial school. That was back when working for the post office meant lifetime employment but little pay or benefits.
Then they were allowed to unionize. Since then they get lifetime employment, great pay and benefits and the USPS runs at a bazillion dollar deficit every year, subsidized by the taxpayers. QED.