[rm445]

> No matter how I look at it, I can't see any net good for voters when public employees unionize.

The benefit goes to the workers (not the voters, except inasmuch as the workers form a moderately large part of the voting public). The private sector consists of many organisations, while in the public sector there's basically a single employer and the employees NEED to unionise to bring about a balance with the powers of the employer.

Put it another way: imagine someone saying "I can't see any net good for voters when public employees aren't indentured slaves". Sure, the voters would get better value from public servants who didn't get paid and could be whipped into working faster, but that's not how we want to run society.

It can be incredibly frustrating to see unions fighting against progress and protecting their own against reasonable discipline. I'm not some union advocate (I'm a non-unionised private sector worker) - it would be great if members could take a more temperate line and bring their unions to a more reasonable position. But what the unions ARE isn't necessarily about bringing about ideal outcomes, it's about sheer exercise of power to fight the corner of their members.

The argument in favour of their existence is that it wouldn't be reasonable to prevent them, risking exposing their members to exploiting by power in the opposite direction.