I was in a government building today and saw a sign posted that raised my ire. It was a recruiting poster for a government employees union. The first thing on the poster was the main reason they state for government employees to join their union. The reason, “The THREAT: Under way is a powerful and rapidly moving effort aimed at the total dismantling of government as we know it.” OK, not even the libertarians want to disassemble the government completely. Now, disassembling government employees unions? You bet I want to do that! Unions in the real world (aka, in a free market) have to dance a fine line between getting everything they can for their membership and running the company they negotiate with straight into the ground. A dead company employs no one and the union employees might have a union but no job. Government employees don’t have that problem. Governments cannot be put out of business and while some government employees do lose there jobs from time to time a union of government employees doesn’t have to worry about putting the government out of business with their theft from the taxpayers. They just raise taxes. They put it in sugary-sweet terms like for the common good and it’s for the children but the unions couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the common good and your children aren’t paying union dues so they’re out too. When you have the teachers union putting their hand picked candidates on school boards it would be like a union getting seats on a company’s board of directors. Oh, but there’s one big difference. In a regular company the stockholders vote for Board members and pick board members that represent their best interests as stockholders. A union would have to own a majority of the companies stock to get their pick of Board members. What does a teachers union have to buy? The candidate. That’s it. Just get them elected and you’re in. It’s sooooo much cheaper than buying a majority stake in a corporation. Even Employee Stock Ownership Programs (ESOPs) doesn’t give employees that much power that cheaply. The real nitty gritty? Government employees can go to the voters with their grievances. They don’t need unions and voters shouldn’t allow unions for government employees.

