Racing Downhill
More bad news for most of us this week, with a federal judge ruling that Detroit can go into bankruptcy and cut pensions, Illinois legislators voting on a bill to cut pensions there, another judge ruling that employers can force employees to arbitrate and not have an option of class action suits. I have a deeply ambivalent relationship to public employee unions. While I believe very strongly in the right to form a union and collectively bargain, public employee unions have much better luck gaming the system by making contributions to the politicians who then determine how much money to give the union workers. In the private sector, an independent labor union can't game the system, at least not this way. In the private sector too often the interests of my representative are more aligned with the unions than the public purse. But that said, the attack on benefits that were won in negotiations reflects a distressing tendency in public life these days, which is to solve yo...