Public Employee Unions

Reader comment on: Richard Epstein on Public Sector Unions

Submitted by J.Johnson (United States), Aug 17, 2010 10:19

As far as I know, the first, last and only strike by unionized Federal employees was when PATCO, the former union for air traffic controllers, called a strike early in Reagan's first term and he fired them all. The situation among state unionized employees is, unfortunately, much different. Just yesterday, yet another teacher's union in Pennsylvania said that, unless their pay and benefits demands were met very soon, they would go on strike and prevent the opening of schools in their area next month. This sort of thing has become very common in PA and usually results in the teachers getting most, if not all, of what they demand. It is no accident that property taxes, which are used to pay for most education costs in PA, are rocketing up in order to pay salaries and pension costs which are among the highest in the country. And, while the teacher's pension fund was losing tens of billions of dollars on their 'investments,' the pension administrators appointed by the Governor were paying themselves enormous salaries and benefits.

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