The root of the problem is lack of market forces. When a union organizes against company owners for better salaries and benefits, they have to leave something o

The root of the problem is lack of market forces. When a union organizes against company owners for better salaries and benefits, they have to leave something on the table for the business owners who will otherwise just close their doors and open some other type of business, maybe even elsewhere. With public workers, they are organizing indirectly against tax payers. Tax payers can't close their doors - they have to pay their taxes. Although I've had my eye out for many years, I've never come across a good solution that would make this relationship work as well as unions versus business owners. Libertarians hold off. The answer is not privatization. Some public services (e.g. NHS) are far more cost efficient and match the quality of private competition. Having used both NHS and the US system, I'll avoid the mess and gamble of the US system pretty much anytime it is convenient. And you can't privatize national defense for what I hope are obvious reasons. So how can you preserve the factors offered by public services and then somehow determine fair wages? That question doesn't seem to have an obvious answer. The best I've come up with myself is to allow the private sector to compete with public services and then simply match the free market wages.