[aruanan]

I thought all union members were thugs. How come more than a quarter of them voted for Walker?

Remember the problem in Wisconsin and about 30 other states isn't unions. It's public-sector unions. And it's not about collective bargaining for wages. It's about the use of collective bargaining for perquisites like health care, pension. The public-sector unions are compensated at rates absurdly higher than private-sector employees with comparable experience. And the problem is that they are making a crapload of money off the taxpayers and jacking up future state liabilities for their pensions into unsupportable levels. Screw them.

[cripplecreek]

One clear display of the problems with public sector unions.

Cop Union Boss Boasts of Beating Lawmakers With Flashlights: If Soldiers Don’t Have Unions, Why Do Police and Teachers?

"We intend to walk into Lansing after the summer break and ask the Republicans who have been so eagerly screwing us, 'who's next?' If we cannot earn their respect we will do what we have always done; hit it with a flashlight until we gain compliance."

The thing is that unions were supposed to protect workers from unfair and dangerous working conditions but when you work for the government who is supposed to enforce our labor laws, the union becomes redundant and needs to justify their existence in other ways.

One thing that bothers me is the potential danger of a system where you have union cops, union judges, and union prison guards. What is to prevent them from using their collective power to justify their jobs? After all, Jenny Granholm was importing inmates from California for no other reason than to keep union guards employed.