[taeric]

Ah, apologies then. I setup a situation where we were talking past each other.

My main question was meant to be what sort of checks prevent corruption in unions that can't be used in public sector unions. Having seen entire police forces disbanded and such, I don't accept that we have very little we can do to keep their demands from becoming unreasonable. I can accept that it is a very blunt weapon and will be hard to do.

That is, I can appreciate the idea that they, almost by default, start on the heavy end of the problems that come with scale. I'm not clear on why that makes their unions a bad idea. I am clear on why that makes their failing a bad idea.

What worries me, is that I am not sure I agree that corporations folding is honestly that much easier for most places to take. The odd partisan relationship so many places build with the corporations that make up their job market strikes me as a different kind of danger.

[bumby]

I do think corruption is inherent in most human endeavors to some degree and easier to continue in organizations of scale. So from that standpoint, I don't think there's any difference between corruption in private or public unions. There may be some argument that since public unions have greater leverage, they can tolerate more corruption. That seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me, but I don't know if there's research to support it.

The disbanding of police departments is a thing, but I think you'll find it's mainly relegated to smaller communities where they can rely on alternate policing (county and state) until they restructure their local police force. Of communities with appreciable size, where those other departments can't absorb the additional policing, it hasn't really been tried. (Minneapolis considered the idea, but it was ultimately rejected in a popular vote).

I do agree that the govt/corporate entanglement is a risk that can prevent corporations from folding, but I think that's a different issue. Going back to the automotive example, the federal govt prevented General Motors from folding but it also came with changes to the union contract driven by bankruptcy negotiations. So govt bailouts don't preclude unions from compromising.