Attacking Teachers Reveals Cost Less Than in ’81: Albert R. Hunt
The political battles raging in states across America are cast as about whether big labor retains its considerable clout.
Republican Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey say public employees are fleecing taxpayers, causing fiscal chaos. It’s an inherent conflict, critics contend, for public-employees’ unions to bargain with government officials they helped elect with campaign support.
In a column in Newsweek last week, a former adviser to President George W. Bush charged that the primary purpose of public unions is to “work against” the interests of taxpayers. “Public unions are big money,” the article boldly proclaims. Most of the specifics are directed at unions representing teachers, firefighters and nurses, yet the