I’ve negotiated numerous labor contracts for public agencies. In most cases, my bargaining team was composed of managers and administrators who were in the same group, for insurance purposes, as the employees the union was representing, and stood to get the exact same benefit increases the union mugged the taxpayers out of. They could also count on getting the same raise as the union members after the contract was settled.
The governing body of the agency invariably had a least one or two, and sometimes a majority, of elected members who were elected with strong union support, and in a few cases even had members of the union elected. The entire process of public agency union collective bargaining is rotten to the very core, and amounts to no less than legally sanctioned plunder of the treasury. No one represents the public and the taxpayer in the process, and if there was any justice the corrupt politicians who foist this system on the American public in many states would find their rotten carcasses rotting in jail.
Thanks for your personal testimony about how corrupt and self serving union contract negotiations are in the public sector. In the private sector shareholders are represented at the negotiating table. In the public sector taxpayers have no representation at the negotiating table. Taxpayers only have hacks who pretend to be negotiating on their behalf