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I was born in 1946. Everyone in our family, including the 7 kids, picked and hoed (sp?) cotton, as well as picking peaches, cherries, oranges, and any other type of labor for food, shelter, and other necessities of life.

Not once did we ever assume, or request, that some union guy would, should, or could "rescue" us from that honest work.

We gradually stopped doing that kind of work when better paying work came along, but we supplemented even that with summer migrant worker type jobs.

As far as the government employee unions, in my experience, they are nothing but cover organizations for the incompetent, "I'm a victim" employees enjoying taxpayer funded jobs/benefits, without either appreciating their jobs, nor providing good service to their customers, the American public.

Firing an incompetent Civil Servant is an exercise in futility that few American taxpayers could even remotely understand. But I do think they understand that the "union protections" for federal employees are not there to "improve the service, or the civility" of those employees.

I applauded President Reagan's action to fire the Federal Aircraft Controllers who went on strike. I wonder if you did, or would have?

As far as the government employee unions, in my experience, they are nothing but cover organizations for the incompetent, "I'm a victim" employees enjoying taxpayer funded jobs/benefits, without either appreciating their jobs, nor providing good service to their customers, the American public.

I belonged to only one union in my life (Communications Workers of America), against my will, for a couple of years in the 70's. I dislike unions, but I also understand there was a time and place when many workers were treated like chattel. Whether or not we like today's version of the union, unions once had a part to play in the humanizing of the workplace.

I applauded President Reagan's action to fire the Federal Aircraft Controllers who went on strike. I wonder if you did, or would have?

As a matter of fact, I also applauded President Reagan's decision to fire the air traffic controllers when they arrogantly and illegally went on strike.

I've had about 10 careers; only one involved working for a state government. In my experience, the majority of lower level government workers were not much different from those I worked with in the private sector. In my state, it was quite possible to fire a worker, although there were certainly people who should have been fired who weren't. The real problems in the agency where I worked were created at top. The incompetence was breath taking.