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Union members who work for the government now outnumber privately employed union members in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall union membership is now 15.3 million; 51.5 percent of these members are government workers. As of December 2009, the U.S. non-farming private workforce had 108.4 million workers; the government had 22.47 million. Thus, 35.1 percent of government workers are unioned, and 7 percent of private sector workers belong to unions.

Public employee unions primarily act in their member’s interests (rather than in (or in addition to) the interest of the optimization of the government entity) and drive up the scope, cost, and size of government. Whereas private unionized industries are subject to the corrective forces of the market, government is a permanent, protected monopoly with the coercive ability to increase revenue through taxation.

The Supreme Court‘s recent ruling allowing unlimited funding of elections by unions should help maintain a course toward soldifying the power of these mandarins of American government.

See, also, http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war .