[taxesareforever]

The short answer, of course, is "because there's money to be made" in Government unions.

In my experience as a government employee I found that malcontents would become union stewards and to get them off the backs of management they would get promoted to supervisors. It was the backdoor method to becoming a supervisor because if it was based on merit alone they would never have made it.

[Stoat]

In my experience as a government employee I found that malcontents would become union stewards and to get them off the backs of management they would get promoted to supervisors. It was the backdoor method to becoming a supervisor because if it was based on merit alone they would never have made it.

Your experiences mirror mine.  The union stewards and activists in my experience have been the least capable employees.  They were always loud, but that was all.