Here's the most amusing reflection on the various confrontations between states and their public union employees I've come across.
Glenn Reynolds observes:
Although there have been some violent incidents
and death threats, overall, despite the talk from many right-leaning
pundits about "union goons," the actual danger posed by the union
members appears to have been very small by labor-historical standards.
Apparently, you just can't get good goons nowadays.
Men forged in the fire of dangerous labor are an entirely different animal than men forged in the crucible of government bureaucracy.
When people who are used to dealing with
cave-ins, or ladles of molten metal, hit the streets, they're putting
those traits to work in an environment that's probably less dangerous
than the one they work in every day. That makes them pretty formidable.
In fact, it made them so formidable that they
were able to put together unions solid enough to send the industries
they depended on overseas, where labor was more tractable, because the
bosses weren't willing to face the headache of trying to get rid of the
unions, and couldn't afford to pay the wages the unions, with their
toughness, had managed to extract.
Public employees, on the the other hand...
When the public employees of, say, Wisconsin hit the streets, it looked
more like a bunch of disgruntled DMV clerks and graduate teaching
assistants, because, well, that's what it was.
[snip]
America's DMV clerks aren't known for toughness
and dedication on the job, and it would be asking a lot to expect them
to display such characteristics for the first time when they're off the
job.
Heh!
