Unions were created to keep businesses from exploiting and mistreating the workforce. The unions took off because there were not effective laws in place to prevent poor labor practices.

The first public union in the US, the Post Office, formed about 10 years after private sector unions started taking off. The first teacher’s union, the American Federation of Teachers, formed about 10 years after the postal workers.

The government finally stepped up and started creating laws protecting workers in the late 30’s with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Since then, there have been plenty of laws and regulations to protect employees.

So why do we need public unions?

If anyone is protected by the government and its myriad of pro-employee laws, it should be government workers, right? So why public unions?

  1. Everyone who gets a public job is forced to join the public union.
  2. When you join a public union, you’re forced to pay union dues.
  3. Those union dues are collected and given (largely) to the election campaigns of Democrat politicians running for office (regardless of whether or not the individual union members support those candidates).
  4. When it comes time for the public union to negotiate terms and contracts with their employer (the government), the union officials negotiate with the very politicians who received their extorted union dues.
  5. The politicians who received those donations give in with very favorable terms so that when the next election cycle comes, the union gives them the forced union dues again.
  6. Go back to step 1 and repeat.

Does this sound right? So why do we have public unions again?