Why Government Unions–Unlike Trade Unions–Corrupt Democracy

> Look at almost any public scandal in recent years—failing schools in Baltimore, police killings in Minneapolis and Memphis—and you will find public supervisors who, under union controls, have lost basic managerial tools. Democracy is supposed to be a process of accountability. But there’s near-zero accountability in American government—between .01 and .02 percent in most jurisdictions. Two out of 95,000 teachers in Illinois were dismissed annually for poor performance over an 18-year study period. In the decade prior to the killing of George Floyd, of the 2600 police complaints in Minneapolis only 12 merited discipline, of which the most severe was a 40-hour suspension.

I'm fine with private sector unions, but public sectors unions don't seem like they tend to always benefit the public.

If you were reading this in good faith, the writer of this article lays out a bunch of points that you cannot simply dismiss as "a corporate attack". It's possible to have both private sector unions as a balance to corporate power, and also rebalance the power public sector unions wield.

If you want government solutions to benefit the public, then you have to grapple with the dysfunction we're seeing and find a way to resolve it.

Also, private sector unions can't simply vote out their bosses (governors, mayors) every few years if they don't get their way, which is a huge power lever.

In any other context, an organization with 0 competitive pressure, in charge of a failing institution, extremely active political lobbying, which vehemently rejects any proposals at performance-based compensation for its members, would be assumed to be the problem; the burden of proof would be to explain how this setup could possibly not cause corruption and incompetence.

Check out the documentary, "Waiting for 'Superman'".

This is not correct, at least not for me. I don't like public unions for the 3 points this article outlines. I would counter your point about effective and say that that only appear effective (if you define effective at maximizing union member compensation) because they can abuse market power and collude with politicians to pay labor way more than would ever happen if the business they were operating in could be substituted away from by its customers. This is not effective on a society level, it's dead weight loss causing abuse of market power and it should be stopped.