Well, your bitterness is understandable, since you actually believe that you have a rational series of arguments.
First of all, yes, we elect representatives who "bargain" on our behalf. Nice theory. How has that worked out? Would we be having this conversation if they had been minimally competent? They are perhaps collectively more ignorant and criminally bent than the average public employee. That system need to be not just "adjusted," but totally overhauled.
Your "indentured servant" argument is pathetic. Not a single "public employee" is forced to accept any conditions she does not like. She is free to leave any time she pleases. You must be using the "Socialist Dictionary" for your definitions.
The reasonable person very easily could extend that argument to the private sector, where the employee can be fired in days, or at the most weeks, where conditions demand it. The public sector is firmly in the grasp of the 20-80 rule; Twenty percent of the employees in any given office do 80% of the work.
I worked in a large "public" facility for 8 years. Long enough to be happy I did not work the first 36 years of my life as a "public employee." I saw it all. Some random examples:
An employee simply disappeared one day. Long story short--- it was 18 months before she was "officially" fired, tying up a supervisor's time a significant amount of his time doing the "paperwork" designed to protect the worker.
Another employee had a side business which he ran out of his "public employee office. Took 4 years to fire him...
Nor are "supervisors" and "overseers" any better, all the way to the top. I toured a project which had cost many millions$, but was abandoned in place after it was completed because it was too expensive to operate it. No one was fired; few people talk about it or even know about it. In private practice this is literally impossible.
The following scenario, which I witnessed personally, summarizes the pathology of the public employee, by the way of contrast.
I became friendly with one of the three owners of a large consulting firm (a few common interests and hobbies), so I had special status in approaching him. Another employee walked up to him and said,"I just passed my state registration exam; do I get a raise?"
The answer was immediate and deadpan: "Do you produce more billable work as a result?" Yes, the employee could simple move on, and eventually he did.
A State employee would have made a federal case out of it. Quite possibly literally.
I "lost" my job in the mini-recession of 1991, when the small firm I worked for was sold and the new owners "kept" their old employees. I had 5 other jobs before I retired, the last being with a public agency. But I have never walked a picket line, nor whined about my absolute right to be entitled to a job and to set my own salary.
I don't know, sir. Who did you vote for?
Neither did I, and neither have I. It is in fact quite difficult to be a conservative in that kind of environment. It's just that I read far too many opinions from people like you who evidently haven't served the public, and who simply assume that because I did, I'm out to suck on the public teat.
I am in fact looking for a job now. Who knows. I may get to serve you again.