The Closer, I answered your question already, but I thought the Economist writer did a better job. An individual has little chance of getting a fair shot in negotiations against either a private company or a public institution. Even though i believe government serves an important purpose, its ideal isn't always its reality. I've witnessed horrible administrators at public schools, for example. Public sector workers need unions as much as private sector workers to give each of them a voice that wouldn't otherwise be heard. Further, since public sector workers are paid by taxpayers, their union benefits, I think, better reflect what taxpayers like me believe in--a living wage, benefits, a voice. Even thought most people don't realize it, non-public sector workers have more in common than we have with CEOs and shareholders in that we all want the same things for our families. I don't harbor illusions that I'll ever own a private island or have either the need or desire for an offshore tax shelter, for example. One extremely effective strategy of big businesss -- articulated by the Koch brothers -- is pitting like populations against eachother, i.e. private sector workers against public sector workers -- because division among the class of people they aim to suppress helps their overall cause.
In terms of wages, my post of that article was to add to the conversation, not address your comment in particular.
In terms of the Wisconsin bill, you have to look at it closely. Most of it does not reflect what Scott Walker campaigned on but rather distills the Koch brothers and their ilk's wet dreams about further deteriorating the voice of the people in government. The unions have already articulated concessions on pay and benefits. Walker is trying to hobble unions completely, along with some other nasty strikes against medicaid, education and the middle class.
The different parts of Walker's attack on unions (from motherjones.com)
In part one, their ability to bargain benefits for their members is reduced.
In part two, their ability to collect dues, and thus spend money organizing members or lobbying the legislature, is undercut.
And in part three, workers have to vote the union back into existence every single year.
Put it all together and it looks like this: Wisconsin's unions can't deliver value to their members, they're deprived of the resources to change the rules so they can start delivering value to their members again, and because of that, their members eventually give in to employer pressure and shut the union down in one of the annual certification elections.
He's also exempting unions that supported him (purely partisan) but those unions have dropped their support of him and taken the side of the people.
From motherjones.com:
Walker's bill would make radical changes to Wisconsin's BadgerCare, a health-care program for uninsured, lower-income families with children under the age of 19.
Right now, Wisconsin's elected lawmakers control how the program works. But Walker's bill would give that power to the state's Health Services department secretary, allowing that official emergency rulemaking power to make changes to BadgerCare. "The law would, however, dramatically limit the ability of citizens to have a voice in the future of Badger Care," the Wisconsin Farmers Union said in a statement. Currently 775,000 people in Wisconsin receive BadgerCare.
Also, the people of Wisconsin are onto the fact that this is a big business power grab, using Wisconsin as a petri dish. From thenorthwestern.com:
The speed in which the bill is heading from proposal to adoption is also of concern. It is slated for a vote Thursday, just six days after it was released to the public. The fact that a national special interest group, The Club for Growth, began broadcasting ads in support of the proposal at the same time the bill was released shows that this is not a homegrown effort to fix Wisconsin's problems, but an orchestrated, ideologically driven campaign.
Not only does it rewrite state labor relations, but it increases the level of state debt, gives the executive branch the authority to rewrite medical assistance provisions unilaterally and grants other sweeping powers such as allowing the Department of Administration to sell or contract for the operation of state heating, cooling and power plants without oversight from the legislature or the Public Service Commission.
