No, I'm not. In unions wages are collectively bargained, as in not based on individual merit. Think about it for a second. Unions don't negotiate wages up because somehow every single one of their members put forth the extra effort that would warrent a pay increase. They negotiate for better compensation because the existence of a union would be pointless if they didn't and union reps would be out of their sleazy jobs. In other words union members get increases in pay without having to increase their productivity.
Public sector employERS aren't free enterprise. They're state enterprise, but it isnt' that they're too stupid to negotiate contracts in their best interest. It's that they have no incentive to because their pay doesn't come from what they produce either. It's not their money one the line footing the bill for the pay increase, it's yours and mine. That's why public sector employees shouldn't be allowed to unionize because neither side has the ability to negotiate in good faith. The employer has none of their own skin in the game so they have no incentive to keep costs down as evidenced by the ridiculous pensions so many state employees have. And the employees have no incentive to do what the rest of us have to do to earn more money because their earning aren't tied to what they produce.
Now that isn't to say I don't think state employees should ever get pay increases. I just think it should be on individual merit and the case for more pay ought to be agreed upon by those footing the bill, the taxpayers either via a direct vote, or by a board representing them.
That's ridiculous. Of course merits matter, indivudually. If you're a dweeb you don't get in nor get the job. You flip burgers or something.
But reward, which is completely different, speaks to value, which is subjective as all get out. And thus collective bargaining was created to stave off those who would have had us emulate the Ruskies, and be commie. Seems we chose right.
So by having labor and management meet, within the context of a free market (no one there that doesn't choose to be) the thought was that the competing forces would create balance where actual value is the defacto result.
And it seems it was, since wages paced productivity, right up till about 1980, when suddenly we got stupid and thought unions were outdated and no longer necessary, reducing steadily the percentage of our workforce in unions.
And whadaya know. Productivity still plodding upward, and now the envy of the world. But oops, wages going in the toilet. Folks no longer being paid their worth.