The Economist’s January 6th print edition has a great article on “The Battle Ahead” about public sector unions that includes these facts:

While union membership has collapsed in the private sector over the past 30 years (from 44% of the workforce to 15% in Britain and from 33% to 15% in America), it has remained buoyant in the public sector. In Britain over half the workers are unionised. In America the figure is now 36% (compared with just 11% in 1960).

This is all true, but The Economist left out one little fact that could have bolstered their story: 2010 was … Continue Reading

An August 25th USA Today read, Cutbacks force police to curtail calls for some crimes, and author Kevin Johnson reported:

Budget cuts are forcing police around the country to stop responding to fraud, burglary and theft calls as officers focus limited resources on violent crime.
…
Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, said cutbacks are preventing many police agencies from responding to property crimes.

But, as many including National Review’s Daniel Foster have reported, law enforcement spending cuts do not have to lead to layoffs. In Oakland, California, for example, Foster reported … Continue Reading

Reporting on the $26.1 billion government union bailout for the Associated Press on August 13th, Steven Paulson wrote:

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis told his colleagues in the House on Tuesday that the bill will provide Colorado school districts with $160 million and save the jobs of 2,600 teachers in Colorado.

Paulson did go on to add:

State Sen. Nancy Spence, a Republican from Centennial, said an unofficial survey by the Colorado School Finance Project, a joint venture by teachers, educators and school executives to track school finances, raises serious questions about the number of jobs that will be saved.

But this makes the … Continue Reading

Politico’s Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman published an informative, if late, article on the growing political liability government unions are becoming for their political patrons June 6th. But their otherwise find narrative could have benefited from some facts. Smith and Haberman reported:

[A]nother consultant to major unions pointed to a different, more structural shift: Public sector unions are increasingly the face of American labor, and they have prospered as private sector unions disappeared and workers’ wages stagnated.

“The face of labor today is now public employee unions whose wages and benefits largely outstrip those of average Americans,” said the

… Continue Reading