Public unions

It is difficult to find union membership numbers in individual states, counties and cities but throughout the country public union membership is 36%. In Hennipen County which includes the city of Minneapolis there were 80 candidates running for 7 county commissioner seats and in primaries eliminated 59 of those leaving three candidate for each of the seven districts. To win one of these the candidate needed about 10,000 votes. There are about 8,000 employees in Hennipen County and according to the national average there would be 2,800 union employees. If they and their spouses and the parents of both all vote, and they do, they can elect the person of their choice.
The can tell that person in advance of the election that they will be elected and then they follow up with their prediction. They can not only vote for this person they can hold coffees in their homes, they can go door to door and they can donate money.
Once they have their candidates elected they now sit down across the table from them and bargain for wages and benefits. On average public union employees have benefits 45% higher than their non-union counterparts.
From 1945 to the present union membership in private companies fell from 45% to 7%. During this time public union membership grew from 2% to 36%. The question is why did this happen. The answer is obvious when you see who pays. In a private union the company pays with company funds which come from profits earned by labor and capital supplied by stockholders. In public unions the money comes from the taxpayers.
Originally public unions were not allowed and public employee wages and benefits were much less than those in private industry. Beginning in the 50’s laws were changed across the country making public unions legal and that is when the benefit structure began to change and now heavily favors public employees.
Like so often happens in our country the pendulum swings and while public employees were underpaid compared to private employees they are now overpaid. This was all well and good until the public sector ran out of money which is where we are today. When the private employees were making substantially more than the public employees they did not get upset when taxes were raised to pay public employees more but when they realized that these public employees were making more than they were they decided enough is enough.