In some ways public sector unions are worse than private sector unions. In the private sector, the stakes are higher; you can contribute to the bankruptcy of yo

In some ways public sector unions are worse than private sector unions. In the private sector, the stakes are higher; you can contribute to the bankruptcy of your company if you are too aggressive. You also can only negotiate with the company itself. Maybe you can get a boycott of products in some cases. With public sector unions, bankruptcy is very hard to achieve. The union also isn't negotiating with the government agency; it's negotiating with politicians as well, who have aims other than efficiency. They want to get elected. If enough of your constituency is in the relevant union, there's going to be pressure to not negotiate as hard. Look at e.g. public transit unions. The DC Metro is falling apart, station managers sleep at work, escalators don't work ludicrously often, repairs are shoddy, and the drivers aren't terribly good at driving their trains (seriously, since they disabled computer control it's started giving me motion sickness; I have never experienced this on other transit systems). Yet the union is asking for a raise.